


Landslide

by alanabloom



Series: Young Blood 'verse [3]
Category: Orange is the New Black
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-10-06
Packaged: 2018-02-15 15:35:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 45,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2234277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alanabloom/pseuds/alanabloom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Follow-up to "Young Blood" and "It's Friday, I'm In Love".  Starts with spring break, Piper's freshmen year at college.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to help everyone get their bearings: we're starting out in March, 1999, the second semester of Piper's freshmen year of college.

_Today is gonna be the day that they're gonna throw it back to you._

Piper smiles, turns up the music, and stuffs her portable CD player into the side pocket of her backpack.  There are days when she or Polly or Grace's class schedules line up enough that they meet up to head back to the dorms, but she almost prefers the solitary walks across campus: headphones on, backpack slung across one shoulder, the contented relief of being done with class for the day.  In these moments, she practically belongs on the cover of a college brochure, especially today, with spring break two days away, which means work load and stress level are at an all time minimum.  

 _Wonderwall_  carries her for most of the walk, then segues into  _Don't Look Back In Anger_.  Piper never gets tired of this album; Oasis seems like a nice choice between Alex's classic rock music snobbery and Piper's college friends' lazy, _whatever's popular on the radio_ standard. 

Though Alex still wouldn't approve.

She's approaching her dorm, humming the final few bars of the song and thinking about forcing some of these onto mixtape for Alex, when someone rips her headphones from her ears with the sort of jarring abruptness that makes the sudden silence seem loud, and Piper whirls around, curse word at the ready, to find Alex smirking at her.

For a second it's so startling, as though Piper's thoughts had actually conjured her, she can't react.  Alex grins, arching an eyebrow.  "Surprise." 

Then Piper's hands are on Alex's jacket, seizing the leather and tugging her forward, kissing her for the first time in two months.  It's the longest stretch they've gone without a visit since Piper started college, and she's been counting down to the upcoming week vacation with something bordering on desperation.  

She's so absorbed in the immediate need to kiss Alex senseless that Piper forgets to wonder what the hell she's doing here.

When Alex pulls away, fiddling absently with the headphones now looped around Piper's neck, Piper has to catch her breath before she manages to ask, "How'd you get here?'

"Bus."

"You know I'll be home in two days?"  As if Alex might have forgotten.  As if Piper hasn't been reminding her of the exact countdown at the end of every phone call for the past few weeks.  

Alex raises her eyebrows.  "You want me to leave?"

" _No_ ," Piper punctuates the word with another kiss, firm and possessive.  Funny, she'd thought she was perfectly content five minutes ago, but as always, once Alex is back in front of her, it's hard to remember how Piper goes so long without her.  

"I figured I could catch a ride back with you.  And since tomorrow's your shortest day, maybe we could go check out some apartments?"

" _Oh_."  The reason for this incredibly pleasant surprise snaps into focus.  "Right.  I guess it is time to start figuring that out."

She takes Alex's hand as they go inside the dorm, trying to quell the instinctual flutter of anxiety that always starts up when they talk about the apartment.  

It's not that Piper doesn't want an apartment with Alex; the set up sounds almost unbelievably perfect.  She just wishes they could skip ahead to when the apartment is an established reality.  The practicalities and logistics always trip Piper up.  Over Christmas, they'd looked up basic information about the various off campus apartment complexes, and Alex had been talking about rent and utilities and security deposits while Piper sat stupidly beside her, stressed out and out of her depth.

She knows some of that is about her being spoiled; Piper can't deny the part of her that wishes she could just hand all forms to her father and wait for him to tell her it's all taken care of.  But Piper's also pretty sure she's not wrong to worry about the financial feasibility of this plan.  In fact, she's not sure how Alex _isn't_ worried.  Maybe her Sonic paycheck, or whatever equivalent job she'll end up getting when she moves her, really will cover the rent, but it seems unfair to expect that.

Still, after Alex's last - and, until now, only - disastrous visit to Smith, Piper knows how important the plan is for both of them.  How _necessary_.  

So she takes Alex up to her dorm room, delicately asks Polly - who, predictably, isn't at all pleased to see their visitor - if she could make herself scarce for awhile, and then Piper spends a blissful hour and a half remembering exactly  _why_ coming home to a bedroom she shares with Alex every day will be worth whatever it takes to get there.  

 

* * *

 

"Do I get to come to classes with you tomorrow?"  

Piper moves the short story collection she's reading from in front of her face so she can look up Alex, who's sitting at the head of her bed, leaning against the wall.  Piper's stretched out, her head in Alex's lap, finishing her reading for The American Short Story.  _  
_

"You really want to?"  Piper asks, surprised.  She tends to assume that Alex wants as little to do with the college experience as possible.

Alex shrugs.  "If I can."

"My english class is kind of small.  So that'd be kind of weird...Perspectives in Drama is a huge lecture, though.  You can totally sit in on that."

She smirks.  "Why are you taking _drama_?"

"It's basically English for plays.  But it fills a gen ed performing arts credit."

"College is weird."

"I actually like it.  I might add a theatre minor.  Or even a double major, if I can swing it."

"And then do what with it?"

"No idea."

"Your lack of a career plan continues to inspire," Alex declares, returning her attention to absently playing with Piper's hair.  She doesn't put her headphones back on, instead waiting until the precise moment Piper lifts the book again to ask, "What are you reading?"

"Raymond Carver.   _What We Talk About When We Talk About Love_."

"Nice title."  Alex thumps her knuckles playfully against the book's cover.  "C'mon, I wanna hear."

A smile creeps slowly across Piper's face.  "What, you want me to read out loud?"

"It's the least you can do.  You're not being a very entertaining host."

"I'm pretty sure you were entertained earlier."

"Or was I _doing_ the entertaining?" 

"I remember it as both."

"True."  Alex smirks.  "But still.  Read."

"Want me to start at the beginning?"

"Nah, just wherever you are is fine."

"Okay.  It's just two couples sitting around talking and drinking.  Basically the whole thing's a single conversation."  Piper's eyes find her spot again, and she starts, " _The afternoon sun was like a presence in this room, the spacious light of ease and generosity.  We could have been anywhere, somewhere enchanted.  We raised our glasses again and grinned at each other like children who had agreed on something forbidden_..."  

It doesn't take long before Piper's reading on autopilot, the old 'reading aloud' instinct from earlier school days coming back to life.  She flicks her eyes away from the page at one point, pausing just long enough to look at Alex.  Her face is unfocused and intense all at once; eyes glazed like she isn't really seeing anything in the room, but somehow still lit with concentration.  Piper smiles to herself and keeps reading; she likes homework this way.  She likes that by next semester, this could be the norm.  

When she finishes the story, her mouth is dry, voice scraped thin, so she flips the anthology to "Paul's Case" and hands it up to Alex, nearly knocking her in the face with the book's spine.  "Your turn."

Obligingly, Alex takes the book in one hand, thumb and pinky stretched across the pages, three middle fingers balanced behind the spine, so she can keep one hand woven through Piper's hair.  Happily, Piper closes her eyes, letting Alex's low, familiar voice wash over her as she starts to read.  

She thinks  _yes, this is what I want._

 _Yes, I can have it_.  

Polly comes back to the room around eleven and finds them in an even lazier version of that position: Alex stretched across the tiny dorm bed, reading with the book held aloft, Piper sprawled next to her, practically using Alex as a body pillow.  Alex barely pauses when Polly enters, just plows on through the sentence, and Piper smiles and gives her roommate a lazy hand flap of a wave.  She can practically see Polly physically fighting an eyeroll.  

Piper ignores that.  She's given up trying to explain Alex to Polly.  

When Alex gets to the end of a paragraph and pauses for breath, Polly breaks in, "So is this your set up next year, Pipe?  You get, like, a housewife slash girlfriend to wait at home to help with homework?" 

Feeling Alex stiffen beneath her, Piper winces in anticipation of whatever pride fueled comeback is about to be hurled in retaliation.  But, shockingly, nothing happens; Piper lifts her head slightly to look at Alex, and she's wearing a small, amused smile that seems to suggest Polly isn't even worth it.

She catches Piper's eye.  "Want me to keep going?"  

"You don't have to."

"I don't mind."  She flicks a glanced at Polly.  "Gotta earn my keep, right?"  But she doesn't sound irritated, merely amused, and Piper can't help but sigh with relief as she settles back down on Alex's chest.  

On Alex's last visit, a comment like Polly's would have propelled her into Asshole Mode for the rest of the night.  But she seems infinitely more at ease this trip, as though finally putting the plan for next year into motion is serving as a light at the end of the long distance relationship tunnel.

 

* * *

 

It feels good, walking across campus the next morning with Alex's arm looped around her, both of them sharing a coffee from the cart outside the dining hall.  Alex is wearing a black scarf she'd snatched from Piper's bed post and a grumpy expression.  

"It's still so fucking cold."

"Well, it is only March."

"I haven't been outside at this hour since graduation."  

"You mean you haven't been  _awake_ at this hour since graduation."

"Ha fucking ha.  Rub it in I have no reason to get up every morning, Pipes."

"I'm sorry."

"Relax, kid, I'm joking.  I'm being good this trip.  Haven't you noticed?"

"I have, actually.  Didn't want to point it out and jinx it." 

 "Well.  I invited myself.  Figure I shouldn't push my luck."

Piper leans into Alex a little more, grinning.  She feels like a brochure cover again, an even better one this time: the happy, blissed out college couple.  She lets herself daydream again about next semester again: always strolling along campus with Alex at her side, bringing her along to all lecture classes, coming out of the smaller ones to find Alex lounging on the quad, waiting.  Eating in the dining hall together, Alex keeping her company in the library (maybe even eventually playing out the _library hook up_  trope Alex kept joking about last time).  

But then the daydream bubble bursts as Piper remembers Alex will, presumably, have to work nearly full time to afford rent on minimum wage, and guilt rushes through her again, just like that.   

She stays quiet until Alex suddenly reaches out her free arm to point.  "Hey!  I know that building."  She purses her lips, squinting.  "Why do I know that building...."  She  _hmm's_ thoughtfully for a moment, then snaps her fingers.  "Oh, right.  We fucked outside it!"

"Alex!"  Piper hisses, glancing around the crowded walkway in horror.

"Don't be embarrassed, Pipes," Alex continues cheerfully, unnecessarily loud.  "They should put a statue there.  Or at least a plaque, commemorating my work."  

 

* * *

 

It's undeniably strange, sitting beside Alex in the lecture hall, like Piper's seeing her out of context.  Alex props her feet on the chair in front of her and gives a perfunctory flick through Piper's syllabus.

Piper's sort of expecting the class to turn into an hour and ten minutes of teasing distractions from Alex, but she actually seems interested in the lecture.  The professor has hooked his laptop to a projector, and is showing clips of various performances from  _The Glass Menagerie_ , discussing the many different interpretations and the way it changes the scene's intent.  

Alex is actually paying more attention than Piper, who's suddenly too distracted by weird, random memories, back in middle and early high school, before Alex pretty much gave up on academia and started skipping class.  The thing is, Alex is  _smart_.  Piper had better grades, because Alex often rushed or forgot homework and never bothered to study, but Alex often beat Piper on tests, and a few times she'd even helped Piper with math concepts that didn't come easily.

For the first time Piper feels something besides _guilt_ that she's away at college and Alex isn't; she actually feels the unfairness of it.  Maybe this should have occurred to her a long time ago, but Alex had always been so certain and phlegmatic about the fact that college wasn't in her future; she'd told Piper that, so matter-of-factly, like it was obvious, way back in ninth grade.  It had simply always been true, the way the future was written.

But carrying food to cars at Sonic must be so fucking mind numbing for someone like her.

Full on tuning out her professor's lesson now, Piper follows this line of thinking, trying to figure out what could be done.  Alex could try to get a job at one of the book or music shops downtown - all their employees are young and impossibly cool looking.

But.

Apartment Guilt bubbles up, right on schedule.  Alex won't have the luxury to wait around and be selective; she'll have take whatever job is available, whatever can give her the most hours, because the bills will start as soon as they move in.  

What's fucked up is that Piper's father would pay for a place.  He'd asked over Christmas break if she'd given any thought to her housing next year, and simply said that if she _was_ looking for off-campus apartments to let him know, and he'd send along whatever information about the finances she'd need to get the application approved. 

Of course, what he really meant was "an off-campus apartment with your school friends."  Piper know that, because she'd stupidly, optimistically floated the idea of living with Alex.

"You know, Alex is thinking about maybe moving to Northampton next year.  To work."

Piper's parents had exchanged a dark, concerned look, and then her mother had swept in, taking the lead, as she always does when it comes to disapproving of Alex.  "Why would she do that, sweetheart?" 

"I don't know.  Probably just wants a change.  But, um...anyway.  I was thinking maybe we could go in on an apartment together."

Another look exchanged.  That time, her parents had tagged teamed it.

"I don't know if that's a good idea, Piper."

"Don't you think you should be living with other students, honey?"

"It's...nice that you two keep in touch on breaks, but you wouldn't want to neglect your new friendships for that." 

"And, Pipe, do you really trust that she could consistently hold up her half of the rent?"

What it all came down to, of course, was that he wouldn't be giving her rent money for an apartment with Alex (even Alex as just a roommate in a separate bedroom).   

Just the thought of defying her parents on that front, even without asking for money to make it happen, gives Piper a childish rush of anxiety she wishes she'd outgrown by now.  She's not looking forward to that conversation.

Alex glances over and catches her, spaced out and staring.  She smirks, then whispers, "Little miss valedictorian's slacking off in college?"

"I wasn't the valedictorian," Piper whispers back.

Alex narrows her eyes, frowning in feigned confusion.  "You weren't?  So you  _didn't_ give a really long, rambling sentimental speech on graduation day?  What am I thinking of?"  She pauses, and Piper rolls her eyes, anticipating whatever punch line is coming.  "Oh, right, that was just the car ride on the way to the school."

Piper elbows Alex, who is, of course, laughing at her own joke, loudly enough to draw some irritated stares from students around them.  Piper shoots apologetic looks and hisses for Alex to shut up, biting back her own smile as she does. 

 

* * *

 

Piper's two Thursday classes are back to back, so after they file out of the theater building, she kisses Alex in the the quad and then leaves her there, heading off to presumably discuss the many short stories they'd read aloud to each other last night.

The air's still cool, but the sunshine is warm, so Alex drops her messenger bag on the grass and stretches out with her head against it, right in the center of the quad...the heart of this place she's trained herself to hate.  

This time, though, Alex feels less threatened by Piper's shiny new home and her shiny new life.  Maybe because this trip was all her idea, all on her terms, or maybe because she knows Piper is coming home with her on the other side of it.  And of course, there's the chunk of money waiting in her bank account, and her own firm resolution that she'll leave Northampton with an apartment picked out and applied for, at the very least.

Of course, that means spring break is going to bring the less than pleasant task of telling Piper about the drug ring.

Finally.

She really had meant to talk to her over Thanksgiving break, but that had barely been a vacation for Piper. Finals apparently started less than two weeks after she got back, and Alex had spent most of Piper's five day vacation being silent, supportive company while Piper studied or wrote essays, providing snacks and the occasional "study break".  Piper's stress level had already peaked, and Alex had made a mostly selfless decision not starting that conflict.

Christmas break, though, she had no excuse.  

That had been just too good to ruin.

Piper had been home for nearly a month, and Alex have reveled in that, in not having to feel like a clock was quickly ticking away the time they had together.  It had been enough to erase the last traces of anxiety and tension leftover from Alex's disastrous visit to Smith, and in the end, she hadn't been prepared to unravel it all.

But Christmas had also involved more lying than Alex was comfortable with, as she had to occasionally make excuses about hanging out with Piper because Fahri needed her.  And she knows once they actually sign a lease, her excuse crosses a line from  _I was afraid to tell you_ and into  _I was waiting until you were stuck with me no matter what._

So, okay.  This break she has to do it.  

But she's got a whole week to worry about that.  

Alex pulls our her new cell phone (another lie, and a particularly inconvenient one - it'd be super helpful if Piper knew the number where she could reach Alex at any time, but there's no way her alarm bells wouldn't go off over the price and necessity of Alex having a cell phone) to check the time.  Piper's got another hour in class, so Alex pulls out her Walkman, slides her headphones on, and closes her eyes.

She's spaced out to some Bob Dylan tape when someone kicks the bottom of her foot.  Alex opens her eyes to see Piper smiling down at her, backlit by the sun.  "You're looking very collegiate." 

Alex grins back, pulling off her headphones and lifting her leg to lazily nudge the side of Piper's shin.  "Get down here."  

Obliging, Piper zips her jacket and tosses her backpack beside Alex's head before stretching out on her stomach, leaning over to give Alex a quick kiss hello.  "I kinda like having you waiting after class."

Alex affects an uppity expression.  "Gotta be a dutiful housewife."  Piper rolls her eyes at the reference, and Alex smirks.  "How was class?  Did you say my thing about the sunlight metaphor?"

"Someone beat me to it." 

"You gotta be on top of that shit, Pipes."

"Sorry.  You explained it better, though."

"Of course I did."

Piper smiles and moves closer to Alex on the grass, resting her cheek on Alex's shoulder.  Automatically, Alex lifts a hand to play absently with Piper's hair, and for a few minutes they lie there in content, easy silence.  

"Hey, Al?"

"Mmmm?"

Piper lifts her head, propping her chin on Alex's shoulder to look at her, the lack of space between them rendering her slightly cross eyed when she does.  "I was thinking.  And you're gonna think this is crazy, but just hear me all the way out."

Already amused, Alex lifts her eyebrows.  "Go for it, Pipes."

"Okay.  So I've got three more years of school, and I know you said you'll work the whole time and we'll keep the apartment and everything.  But I was thinking, that doesn't seem really fair.  So after I graduate and get a job...then maybe we can switch."

"Switch."

"Yeah.  I can work, and you could go to college!"

Piper stops with that, beaming at Alex, so sure of her own brilliance.  Alex doesn't react, just scrutinizes Piper's expression, unable to quite gauge the intentions of this sudden suggestion.

Misreading her silence, Piper continues, "I know you hate the idea of debt and student loans.  But if I'm working a decent job, and then you get a job right after _you_ graduate, it may not be so horrible, right?  If you could come out of it with a legitimate job."

Alex bristles slightly.  "A _legitimate_ job?"

"You know what I mean." 

Alex sighs, barely keeping it from segueing into a groan.  She turns her eyes skyward, trying not to be annoyed.  It's not that she doesn't get the logic of what Piper's trying to suggest.  It's not her fault it seems so simple.

"I think you're jumping ahead a little, Pipes," Alex says finally, in a carefully calm, measured voice.  

"I'm not telling you to apply tomorrow or anything."

"I know.  I just think there's a lot of other stuff you need to figure out before we plan your post-graduation life.  Like, just off the top of my head...if you're supporting me through school, won't it be kind of hard to keep convincing your parents we're just platonic roommates?"

Piper's face falls; she doesn't have an answer for that, and even though that was Alex's intention, she can't help a traitor flicker of disappointment.   She has no idea if Piper has any notion of when, or how, she'll eventually tell her parents about her relationship with Alex.  She never even floats the possibility.  As far as Alex knows, it'll be a secret forever.

If it was just about her being a girl, Alex could maybe accept the awkward reality.  It's not as if she's dying to get closer to Piper's parents, but really, that's the whole problem.  She knows how they look at her, how they always have, even when she was a nine year old kid whose only crime against the Chapmans was inviting their daughter to a less than presentable apartment building.  

Alex sometimes suspects Piper's reluctance to tell them the truth is as much about that as anything else. 

She kees her neck tilted back, not looking at Piper for a moment, letting the awkwardness settle and fade in the silence, and then she lifts Piper's hand to her lips, conciliatory.  "Maybe we need to take it one step at a time, kid.  Go see some apartments?"  

Piper smiles up at her, unmistakably relieved.  "Okay.  Let's do that."

 

* * *

 

"I think this is the one."

Piper whirls around, obviously surprised at the declaration.  "Are you serious?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"  Alex looks up from the apartment application the building manager had given them.  "You said this was the best one."  It's the third apartment complex they've visited in the last two hours; all are close to campus, all primarily populated with Smith students.   

"Why do we need two bedrooms?"  This particular complex has very few studio apartments, seeing as most students tend to favor two or three bedroom places.  

" _Because_ , Piper."  There's an edge to Alex's voice.  "When your parents come visit again for Parent's Weekend or whatever the fuck it is they drove up for last semester, they may actually want to see where you live.  And they'll probably expect us to have separate bedrooms."  

"But I didn't mean...it's stupid to pay more than we need to.  This place is the most expensive."  Christ.  Piper looks like she'd rather sink into the floor than discuss this; Alex knows Piper would just as soon avoid talking about money,  _ever_ if possible, and she kind of wishes she could just drop the whole front and explain that it's not a problem.  

"I know.  But I've got it."

Piper plucks the housing application from Alex hand and scans it.  "Did you see the security deposit?  Because they need it upfront...and it says they want proof of three months' rent in your bank account already - "

"I  _said_ I've got it, Piper."

"But - "

"You obviously like it the best.  It's bigger, and the difference in rent between two bedroom apartments at the three places isn't that significant.  This one includes more utilities,  _and_  doesn't charge extra for your parking space.  I wouldn't _take_  it if the money wasn't something I could handle, okay?  I've actually paid bills before, Pipes, you haven't."  

Piper flushes, and Alex sighs, instantly regretting the condensation in her tone.  She knows Piper is feeing guilty, and anxious, and really it's Alex's own fault, since she could assuage all worry and isn't.

"Look," Alex softens her tone.  "I've been working for like three years, Pipes.  Full time for almost a year now, and I don't pay rent or spend money on much more than cigarettes and blank tapes.  It's gonna be fine."

She shouldn't accept that so easily, but Alex knows she will.  Money is a vague, abstract concept to Piper, and anyway, most of Alex's expenses would never occur to her.  Even since Alex started working, Diane's refused to take any of her money for rent or car payments, so Alex has always just contributed where she can.  She does most of the grocery shopping, snags whatever bills she can, knowing her mom won't miss them as long as nothing turns off, and even takes the car to fill it with gas when Diane sleeps between night shifts.

But anyway.  That's not such a problem anymore.  

Piper still looks anxious, and Alex doesn't want this apartment to be a source of anxiety for her.  She flops down on the hardwood floor, right in the enter of the empty living room, and, arching an eyebrow invitingly, extends her hand to Piper.  

"Besides," she says as Piper links their fingers together and allows herself to be tugged onto the floor beside Alex.  "You add up the amount of gas money you've spent on 'dates' where we just drive around for hours and have sex in the car...I probably owe you at _least_ a couple months worth of rent."

"My dad gives me gas money," Piper admits.

"I know."  Alex smirks, stretching out on her back and pulling Piper down beside her.  "So spoiled."  But she says it warm and teasing, and it coaxes a small smile from Piper.  They look around at the bare walls and open space.  It's nearly twice the size of the apartment Alex shares with her mom, and Alex has to work on not feeling guilty about that. 

It's fine.  Alex has plans.  She is going to buy her mother a house someday, is going to hand her a key and tell her to quit every job she has.  

Alex is, for once, able to think in the long term.

Starting here, with this.  Her and Piper's place.   _Theirs_.

"Hey."  She nudges her shoulder against Piper's.  "Wanna christen the place?"

Piper turns to look at her, and Alex curls her lips, arching her eyebrows suggestively.  Piper grins.  "You know this won't actually be ours.  It's just the unit they keep empty to show students." 

Alex leans up on her elbows and rolls over, leaning down to kiss Piper.  "So?" 

 

* * *

 

In the end, Piper's too paranoid about the possibility of the building manager walking back in to check on them to do more than make out for a couple minutes. Alex rolls off her and grumbles that she has no sense of fun.  She stays on the floor, diligently filling out the apartment application, and then she and Piper drop it off at the landlord's office and head back to campus.

Friday morning, Alex sleeps in, alone in the dorm room while Piper attends her last classes before spring break.

Piper had regretfully informed her that she was giving Polly a ride home from break, meaning for the first hour of their drive they'll be joined by an unpleasant third wheel.  Alex doesn't mind so much; she has a plan for dealing with Polly this trip: she's going to be an utter fucking delight.

Piper will be happy about that, thinking Alex is making an effort, but the truth is, it's probably the most irritating thing she could do.  After Alex's first visit, Polly already hates her; it's the sort of hatred that will not be reversed, can only be fed, so Alex is refusing to feed it.  Won't give Polly the satisfaction of sending her away with brand new examples to prove how right she is about Alex.

So Alex flashes a charming smile when Polly gets back to the dorm, and while they load suitcases into the trunk of Piper's car, she asks pleasantly, "Polly, things still going on with that guy?"

Startled at being addressed, Polly swings a suspicious look at Alex.  "What?"

"You were with a guy last time I was here."

"Jake," Piper puts in helpfully.

"Oh.  No.  That's over."

"That's too bad."  Even Piper is staring at her, trying to gauge sincerity.  Alex just smiles; the affect is almost satirical.  "Plans over break?"

"Not really."  Polly ducks into the backseat of the car, looking like she's crawling into a locked cage.  

Alex shrugs in Piper's direction and takes her usual place in the front passenger seat.  

Piper cranks the car and grins.  "Spring break!" 

Alex is already sorting through tapes.  "Pipes, we fucking need milkshakes."  She lifts her gaze to the rearview mirror.  "Polly, milkshake?"  

"Why?"

"Cause that's how Pipes and I road trip."

"This is true," Piper confirms seriously.  

They go through a fast food drive thru on the way out of town, Alex testing mixtapes without settling on one until they pull onto the highway and she recognizes the label on a tape deep in the glove box.  "Oh, okay, here we go.  Pipes, you ready for this?" 

"Hell yes."

Alex pushes in the tape and immediately fast forwards, the high pitched shrieking filling the car.

"Good choice," Piper says dryly.

"Shut up.  We gotta start in the middle."

"Should we be concerned that you know the track order on every tape in my car?"

"Probably not, I made most of them." 

"Still.  They're barely labeled.  That's some savant level memory."

"I just remember specifically making this tape.  The first side's for driving, the second side's for car sex."  She twists around in her seat to give Polly a reassuring smile.  "Don't worry, we'll skip those."

"Gee, thanks."  Polly looks like she'd like to hurl herself out of the moving car.  Alex turns back around, hiding her smirk as she continues going through the tape until she finds what she's looking for. 

"Got it."  

Piper's face lights up instantly as the hurried, buoyant piano riffs of  _Baba O'Riley_ burst through the speakers.  Her fingers start fluttering across the steering wheel, a poor but enthusiastic imitation of the piano, a well practiced routine.  

Alex cranks up the volume, and Piper, still intently miming riffs across the wheel, shouts over the music in explanation, "We used to air band to this when we were kids."  

"I think I played this the first time you spent the night." 

"Yeah, I remember, on your mom's record -  _Alex_ _."_ Piper waves her hand in the direction of the radio.

Alex keys back into the music just in time to come in on the air drums. Piper frees up a hand just long enough to crank the volume even louder, and when the vocals come in, they both start singing, hands still valiantly miming the instruments. Alex rolls down her window, and the wind sucks up their voices but not the music.  The tape is loud and the car is fast and Polly's miserable expression in the backseat is just a bonus.

"Teenage _waste_ land!"  

"Hey Piper!"  Polly calls loudly from the back.  "Should I be concerned about your driving right now?"

"She's kind of an expert at this multi-tasking, actually,"  Alex answers with a wide grin.  "You're witnessing true talent."

They're a giggling, breathless mess by the time the song winds down, but Joan Jett cranks to life immediately after, and the energy stays high.

Thirteen songs later, they pull into the driveway of Polly's house, hoarse and giggly, and she exhales in exaggerated relief as she gets her bags out.

"See ya next week, Poll,"  Piper calls out the window as Alex waves merrily at her.  They idle in the driveway and watch Polly roll her suitcases toward the front door.

"Polly hates fun," Alex deadpans.  

Piper starts laughing.  "I think we're probably kinda hard to be around."

"We're fucking delightful, Pipes.  Don't let her tell you otherwise."  She leans across the console to kiss the curve of Piper's jaw, meaning it to be perfunctory, but the idea of making out in Polly's driveway isn't unappealing.

As if reading her mind, Piper smirks, turning her head for a quick kiss but then moving pointedly away and throwing the car into reverse.

 

* * *

 

The first few days of break pass like all the vacations before it: Alex and Piper slip right into their old routines, spending every possible moment together, waking and sleeping.  

But on Tuesday morning, Piper has to put in some obligatory 'home from college' mother/daughter time, going out for breakfast with her mom and grandmother and then shopping for a few hours.  It's not as terrible as it could be: her mother makes three different passive aggressive comments about Piper not having a boyfriend, and two wondering why she hangs out with Alex so much over breaks, but she also buys Piper a couple skirts and shirts for the upcoming spring weather.  So.  Could be worse.

Still, she's glad to get home and be released from family time for the day.  She dials Alex immediately, but no one picks up at her apartment.  It only takes an hour or so of no answer for Piper to get impatient enough to go track Alex down; it's not as if there are many locales she frequents. 

Diane spots Piper thirty seconds after she walks into Friendly's; she smiles and changes courses on her way to the table, waving a dismissive hand at the hostess about to ask Piper how many are in her party.  "I got this one, Jean."  She puts an arm around Piper's shoulders and leads her toward the dining area.  "Didn't expect to see you today, Pipe.  To what do I owe the surprise?"

"I was wondering if Alex was here."

Diane gives her a stern look.  "Wrong answer."  

Piper smiles.  "I mean, I was just craving the best customer service in town?"  

"Better," Diane pronounces with an approving nod.  "Al's not here, though...if you're in town I usually assume I'll find her within two of feet of ya."  

"My mom and I had to see my grandmother this morning."  

"Ah.  Well, if Alex isn't at the apartment, she probably swung by on the bus to borrow the car.  She usually stops in to say hi when she brings it back, you're welcome to wait.  'Less you think she's drivin' around in circles looking for you."  Piper considers for a moment, then Diane adds, "You eaten lunch?"

"No."

"Here, sit down.  I'll put in your order and go on break...you and me need a chance to catch up without Al, anyway."

Piper grins.  "She's just _always_ third wheeling us."  

"What a brat, huh?"  Diane winks.  "You want your usual, or have you gone vegetarian in college?" 

"Not a vegetarian."

"Good girl."

Diane's back in less than two minutes with diet cokes and plate of fries.  She sets them in the middle of the table and slides into the booth across from Piper.  "So.  Catch me up."

Even though, unlike her daughter, Diane has never demonstrated an ounce of resentment - or, in fact, anything but genuine interest - in Piper's college life, she still feels awkward discussing too much.  So she gives a vague, 'no-big-deal' sort of rundown of her classes this semester, then focuses the conversation on her and Alex's apartment search.  

Grinning, Diane comments, half teasing, "Big step.  You two sure you're ready to live together?"  

"I think we're pretty familiar with each others' habits by now."

"True.  I was telling Al...it just seems so fuckin' grown up.  When I was you kids' age, I was mostly sharing hotel rooms with four or five other girls."

"Yeah?"  Piper leans forward, eager.  She's always loved Diane's stories from before Alex was born, back when she'd travel around the country, going from concert to concert, sometimes following a single band, sometimes just sticking close to a venue for awhile.  "How'd you pay for it?"

"Oh, some of the other girls were fuckin' loaded...playing the boho groupie thing, but doing it with their parents money, ya know?  But then sometimes, if we were with one band in particular, they'd just get a whole slew of rooms, and we'd take one the same as if we were part of the entourage."

"But you weren't, like, you know..." 

"What?"

" _Staying_ with the musicians?  In their rooms?"

Diane smirks.  "On and off.  Most of those arrangements weren't exactly permanent, if you know what I mean.  The best thing was when one of us would have a thing with one of the guys from an opener, some up and coming band.  That's usually how we'd get on a tour bus.  'Course every once in a while, one of us would get in with one of the  _real_ famous guys.  Those were the best times."  She pauses, grabbing a few fries, then adds, "That's what happened with Al's father." 

Piper goes still.  Even back when they were kids, and Alex still talked about her father's band and music constantly, when Death Maiden posters were the primary decorations in her room, Piper's never heard Diane mention him.  She meets her eyes cautiously.  "Yeah?"

"Mmm-hmmm.  His band was _somethin',_ trust me.  Not that you'd know it now, but they were.  But Lee walked right up to me backstage one night - we'd gotten in with some nerdy lil rock journalists - and that was it.  Stayed with him on tour with him for a whole three months."

"Wow."  Piper thinks back to the concert she went to with Alex, trying to picture that aged, weathered drummer twenty years ago, charming someone like Diane.   She hesitates, then asks softly, "Did you love him?"

"Ah, I don't know.  Probably not, or else I'd remember more of it.  All I remember is the _cool,_ ya know?  How famous he was, how fucking jealous the other girls were.  I remember loving the thrill of it, the fact that  _he_ wanted  _me_ , but not much else about him.  Not before he proved himself to be a right asshole, of course."  A waiter brings over Piper's usual burger order, and Diane grins and thanks him before continuing.  "I was just an idiot fuckin' kid, though, Pipe.  Even when I got pregnant, and he had fuck all to say about that...I didn't want to ruin it.  Having a wild affair with a famous rock star?  That was a damn good story.  Getting knocked up and left in Cincinnati by a mediocre, drug addicted rock star?  Not so much."

"He _left_ you in Cincinnati?"

"Oh yeah.  The whole tour rolled out.  The other girls, too.  Had to call my goddamn sister to wire me money for a bus ticket home.  Not that my parents let me move back in once they found out I was having a baby.  That was a bad few months, Pipe."  Diane smiles and shakes her head a little, incredulous, the way people do when they've got enough distance to look back on bad times and feel almost nostalgic.  "But like I said.  I still couldn't let the story go.  So I told myself and everyone else that he was _talented_ and _cool_ ,  and that I was lucky to even be with him."  Her smiles fades slightly.  "Just wish I hadn't passed that version of the story onto Alex."

Piper's eyes skirt automatically away, and she's not sure what to say, until Diane, as though reading her mind, answers her unspoken question.  "Al told me she met him."

" _Oh_."  Piper meets her gaze again.  "She did?"

"Yeah.  I feel like shit about it.  I never wanted to ruin it for her, and...honest to God, I never thought she'd be able to find him.  I mean, you saw the show."  Piper nods confirmation even though Diane doesn't seem to need it.  "In a shithole, right?"

"Yeah, pretty much." 

"Mmm-hmm.  I can't believe she even found a concert."  Diane sighs, but then her face softens.  "I'm just glad you were with her."  

"Of course."

Diane grins a little.  "Yeah, yeah, I know  _of course._ You two, I swear."  

Piper slides her gaze to the front of the restaurant, for no real reason, at the same second Alex walks in.  Piper's face lights up enough for Diane to swivel around, likely assuming who she'll see.  Alex grins and tilts her head in surprise when she sees them sitting together.

"Hey!"  She practically throws herself into the booth beside Piper.  "What are you doing here?"

"I had plans with your mom, didn't I say?"  Piper says casually.  

"It's true, babe," Diane nods, straight faced.  "We get together to complain about you whenever we can."

"Uh-huh.  Like I give either of you things to complain about."  She reaches for the plate in the center of the table, grabbing the last few fries that remain.  "Hey, Mom, can you get me another order of fries?"  

Diane scoffs out a laugh.  "Do I look like I'm on the clock?"  She looks at Piper, shaking her head in mock exasperation.  "What did I say?  Total fuckin brat."  

"Fine.  Nathan'll get them for me."

"Oh, sure, good plan.  I'll call Nathan right over here to meet your girlfriend."  Diane looks at Piper, arching an eyebrow, an expression eerily similar to Alex.  "One of our new waiters is all crushed out on Al.  And she flirts  _just_ enough so he gives her perks."

Piper turns to Alex, eyes narrow and accusatory.  "Why do you need some dude's perks?  Your mom _works_ here."

"She only uses her employee discount.  I'm pretty sure Nathan takes everything out of his paychecks."

Diane nods to confirm that.  "He does."  

Piper scowls, which makes Alex smirk.  "Oh, stop, you know you don't have to be jealous of guys."

"Oh?"  Piper lifts an eyebrow, challenging.  "Are you saying I _do_  have to be jealous of  _girls_?" 

Diane chuckles at that.  "Bad move, kiddo."

Alex scoots a little closer to Piper, puts an arm around her and kisses her cheek, conciliatory.  "You know you don't."

"Really, though, where have you been?"

"Work."

"Thought you have the week off."

"Somebody didn't show up this morning, they were desperate."  

Piper frowns a little.  "You know you really don't have to take off the whole week just cause I'm home.  I don't mind hanging out at Sonic."

"Yeah, Al," Diane puts in.  "That way you can be the one _giving away_ free fries, instead of just mooching."

"That doesn't sound as fun."

"You don't have to tell me."  Diane stands up, smirking.  "I gotta get back to work.  Pipe, don't worry about the bill."

"You don't have to - "

"I know I don't."  Diane winks and waves her off.

Alex looks up at her mom.  "So are we a  _no_ on the fries?"  

"I'll send Nathan over.  But you two might not wanna be cuddling on one side of the booth when he gets here."

Diane walks away, and Piper grabs Alex's jacket and tugs her close, kissing her insistently, almost possessive.  

Alex is smirking when she pulls away.  "Do you have any idea where you are right now?"

"Oh,  _shit_."  Piper's eyes widen, then dart nervously around the restaurant, looking for anyone she knows.  "I kinda forgot.  I think we made out too much in public in Northampton."

"I was there for two days, Pipes."

"And we made out a _lot_."

Eyes gleaming, Alex leans close again, but doesn't quite close the gap.  "Let's go out tonight."  

"Out?"

"Yeah, it's your spring break.  I feel like you're supposed to spend a certain amount of it drunk.  Let's drive out of town, maybe go to all those bars near State...I'll DD you coming back."

" _You_ want to DD?"

"Shut up.  But, yes.  Consider it my spring break gift to you."

"Okay, sounds fun.  But one thing...my mom's kind of making a thing about how I 'don't even sleep on the house when I'm home on break'."

"Not a problem.  We'll go back to your place...I can sneak your drunk ass in."

Piper grins, and only barely restrains herself from kissing Alex again.

 

* * *

 

Alex shows up to Piper's house, dressed and made up to go out, and quietly sneaks upstairs without alerting Piper's parents to her arrival.   

She pushes open the door to Piper's bedroom.  "Hey, you."  

Piper looks her her shoulder and smiles.  She's in a dark blue dress Alex hasn't seen before, and is finishing up her makeup in her full length mirror.  "Hey, how'd you get here?"

"My mom dropped me off."

"I'll be ready to go in a minute."

"No rush.  I brought you something."  She reaches into her leather jacket, which she's been pulling tightly against herself as she walked through the house, and pulls out a bottle of tequila.  

"Thought I was driving there."

"I'll drive.  You drink." Alex sticks her tongue between her teeth and smirks. "I know important the pre-game is to your nights out."

 

* * *

 

Piper takes advantage of being in the passenger seat for once and, with some help from the several shots of tequila she'd had before they left, goes full out with the air banding and singing on the forty-five minute drive to the nearest university town.

It's the middle of the week, but the State college nearby isn't on their break, so there are still decent crowds, judging by the main street that runs along the edge of campus, lined with bars and cheap restaurants.  Alex leads the way, picking a place she knows, the closest to a dance club the area has.  

Piper's buzz is starting to wear off upon arrival, but one drink at the bar and it surges to life again.  Alex orders a beer and drinks it slowly, heeding her designated driver duties.  

They drink and dance for an hour or so, riding the music and adrenaline.  At one point, Piper's grinding on Alex from behind, when suddenly she leans forward and yells into Alex's ears, "Think we'll see anyone from high school?"

As the closest, and biggest, public university in the state, the school is famous for attracting a decent chunk of every graduating class from their hometown.  Alex frequents this area for work, and she knows it's not impossible, but she feels only a flicker of vague recognition for most of her peers from high school, and she's never seen anyone who would bother approaching.  There's a decent smattering from Piper's old crowd that ended up here, though.

"I don't know, why?"  Alex spins around, hands on Piper's hips, pulling her flush against her as they dance.  "Do we need some space in case they see?  Get some plausible deniability?"  

Directly defying that, Piper vines her arms around Alex's neck and kisses her deeply.

After an hour, Alex takes Piper's hand and weaves through the crowd toward the bar.  She's leaning on a tiny available surface of space, Piper in turn leaning against her back.  Alex is working to catch the bartender's eye when someone forces themself into the space beside her, shouting, "Alex?"

She glances over, and instantly feels shot straight through with panic.  There's a twenty something year old guy standing there, Abe something, and he's one of the local clients.  

 _Fuck_.

Alex ignores him, less because it's a good strategy than because her mind can't settle on another one.  He tugs at her arm.  " _Alex_."

She feels the weight on her back lessen as Piper straightens up.  Alex keeps her gaze fixed behind the bar.  "Sorry, you're looking for someone else."

"Hey, listen, hey.  I got money, alright, I just need a bump, c'mon, just however much you have..."  

He's shaking.  Gleaming with sweat under the lights of the bar.  And he clearly doesn't comprehend that Alex isn't a dealer.  

"Alex?"  Piper's voice now.  Confused, slightly anxious.  Alex reaches back and takes her hand, giving her a baffled shrug.  She turns back to the guy and says in a forceful, threatening voice, "I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.  Go.  Away."   His eyes are huge and desperate, and for a second he seems to be debating following the advice; Alex pulls Piper forward, then pointedly turns her body, edging the guy out.

"What the hell was that?"  Piper asks.  

"I have no idea."

"But he knew your name."

"Yeah, I've seen him with groups before.  He knows Whit and Lucy."  Names of theater tech kids Alex was vaguely, almost friends with in high school who now go to school here.  They're who she tells Piper she met up with when she goes out.  

"Did he think you have  _drugs_?"

"I guess.  Told you, I barely know him...definitely didn't know he was a fuckin' junkie."  

Piper's eyes are squinty, forehead furrowed, and she looks like she's got more questions, so Alex leans her body even further across the bar, holding up a hand and insistently flagging down a bartender.  

Two minutes later she's handing Piper another drink and one of the two tequila shots she'd ordered.  Piper eyes the pair uncertainly.  "Should you be doing shots and driving?"

"Oh.  Probably not."  Alex smirks, and pushes the second one toward Piper.  "Guess it's all on you."

Five minutes later, Piper's blissfully dancing, the encounter forgotten, and Alex leaves her on the dance floor to go the bathroom, but instead finds Abe wandering the peripheral of the bar.  

He looks stupidly relieved to see her.  "Hey, listen, seriously - "

She steps close, menacing enough that he stumbles back against the wall.  "Listen, you  _shit_.  Do  _not_ come up to me again.  You don't know me, you have no idea who the fuck I am, got it?"

"Yeah, fine, sure, fine, just...just sell me something."

"I'm not a  _dealer_ , dumbass.  I fucking work with the mules, I don't carry."  

"Okay, okay, but I know you got some of your own shit, right?  You had to bring your own?  I'll pay you double for it."

Alex laughs at him, unkindly.  "No, I don't have my own.  Know why?  Cause I don't want to be a pathetic fucking junkie having to  _beg_ for drugs in bars." She lets go of him, narrowing a glare.  "I mean it.  You come up to me again, I'll be letting Fahri know there's a problem."

 

* * *

  

Piper's singing  _Bad Reputation_ in a sort of hissing stage whisper as they enter her front door, and Alex has to wrap an arm around Piper  _and_ lift the hand high enough to cover her mouth.

"Ssssh, Pipes, your parents," Alex says under her breath, trying hard not to laugh at the image of Piper's parents running in in their bathrobes and pajamas, finding their perfect daughter drunk off her ass, her mouth smeared with Alex's lipstick, one hand trying to not so stealthily creep under Alex's dress.  But Piper instantly heeds the warning and stops singing, proving she _does_ give a damn about her reputation.  

Alex helps Piper out of her heels and clumsily kicks them out of the center of the foyer.  It's slow going up the stairs; Piper lets both feet land on every step before going for the next one, like a toddler just learning to walk.  She's leaning against Alex, and keeps turning her head to kiss her neck.

They're moving down the upstairs hallway to Piper's bedroom when there's a shuffling behind them, and even in Piper's drunken state she stiffens and leans away from Alex, though she still keeps a tight gip on her arm out of necessity.  

Alex turns; it's just Cal, leaning against the dorm frame of his bedroom.  She grins at him in greeting.  "Evening, Calvin."

"Hey, Hobbs," he says, using the nickname he's been calling Alex since he was nine, the inside joke born out of some comic related conversation no one really remembers anymore.  He smirks a little, watching his sister.  "Is she drunk?"

Alex sniffs the air pointedly.  "Are you high?"

"Almost always.  Wanna join?"

"Maybe in a minute."  She nods pointedly at Piper, who's now leaning her head against Alex's shoulder and eying her younger brother with naked suspicion.  

"Cal.   _Cal_.  You can't tell," Piper orders with a surprising amount of gravitas.  

Cal snorts.  "Why would I _tell_?"

Piper shrugs and starts stumbling toward her room again, pulling Alex after her.  Waving at Cal as she goes, Alex says, "Good to see you, Calvin."

"Night, Hobbs."

His door shuts again, and Alex leads Piper the rest of the way into her bedroom, where she immediately wrestles her dress off.  There's an open suitcase propped against the wall, clothes Piper had brought home for break spilling out, but right on top is the oversize The Who T-shirt that used to be Alex's, the one Piper usually sleeps in.  Alex hands it over and watches as Piper puts it on inside out.  

Piper sighs in contentment and flops down on the bed.  "Are you coming in?"

Alex chokes on a laugh.  "Coming in the bed?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Yeah, I'll, uh.  I'll be in in a sec."  

Alex tugs off her pants and top, leaving her in only a black cami.  She checks that the bedroom door is locked, just in case, and then crawls under the sheets beside Piper.  She curls against her and leans over, lips caressing the bow of Piper's cheekbone, but Piper's eyes are already closed, and she only makes a happy little humming sound and snuggles back against Alex in response, too sleepy drunk to be anything but chaste.

But Alex is all too awake, and all too sober. As Piper drifts off beside her, she can finally let the full panic of tonight hit her.  God.  Today was a total fucking mess.  She started it out lying to Piper about working a last minute shift at Sonic, and then the incident at the bar had been too close for comfort.

They're halfway through the break.  She can't put this off anymore.  

Tomorrow.  She has to tell her tomorrow.

 

* * *

 

"Piper!  Piper, honey, are you awake?"  

Piper eyes snap open, her mother's voice and the insistent tapping on her bedroom door hurling her into wakefulness.  Beside her, Alex sleeps on, unaffected by the noise.  

Urgent, Piper shakes her into a rude awakening.  Alex screws up her face and opens her mouth to protest, but Piper's hand clamps over her lips.  She mouths the word  _Hide_ and starts nudging Alex off the bed.

"Piper?"

"Yeah, Mom, I'm awake."  

"I'm going to meet Marilyn for brunch at the club.  I may stop by the grocery after, do you need anything?"

"Nope, I'm good, thanks."  

Alex ends up on the floor, tugging all the blankets off the bed with her.  

"Okay, sweetie, I'll see you a little later on.  Don't stay in bed all day."

"Alright, Mom.  Have fun."

They listen for the retreat of footsteps down the stairs, and then Alex scowls up at Piper.  "Why would I need to  _hide_?"

"Oh..."  Piper thinks about it.  "I guess you didn't.  Sorry.  Panicked."

"Terrific."  Alex crawls back onto the bed, looking somewhat irritated and disoriented at her less than gentle exit from sleep.  "You hungover?"

Piper takes a second to assess.  "Not so much.  I think going out so much at school is building my hangover tolerance."

Alex manages half a smirk.  "Just not your actual alcohol tolerance, huh?"

With her mother out to brunch, her father at work, and Cal in school, the house is safely empty.  They take their time showering and getting dressed.  Piper turns on the stereo in he bedroom, feeling perfectly content to just meander through the morning, but Alex seems distracted and oddly restless.

"Let's do something different today," she says suddenly, oddly declarative and apropos to nothing.  

"Okay," Piper agrees easily, up for whatever plan Alex concocts.  "Like what?"

"Like..."  She thinks, then abruptly grins.  "Let's go to the ocean." 

"Seriously?"

"Yeah.  I'm trying to give you an authentic spring break here, Pipes.  Drunken debauchery last night.  Today: beach."

"I think it's usually sunny Floridian beaches, Al.  Not New England in the middle of March."

"It's all about the experience, babe."  

Alex is staring expectantly, waiting for Piper to agree.  As it dawns on her that Alex is actually, literally serious, a slow smile starts to creep across Piper's face.  "Yeah, okay.  What the hell.  Let's drive to the ocean."  

 

* * *

 

They stop at a gas station on their way out of town, and Piper fills the car while Alex runs next door to the pharmacy to get supplies.  Piper follows her when she finishes.  Alex is in the line at the register with two bottles of wine (made possible by her extraordinarily fake ID) and a basket full of junk food.  

Piper grabs one of the disposable, one roll Kodak cameras hanging on a rack beside the register and adds it to the pile.  She pulls out her debit card but Alex waves it away and pays in cash.

There's a giddiness building slowly in Piper's chest as the day stretches out before them, all possibility and no obligation.  As they cross the parking lot to head back to the car, Piper laces her hand with Alex's, complete with arm swinging, and Alex smiles and rolls her eyes and affectionately calls Piper a  _fuckin' dork_.  

They crank up the music, again looking for perfect road trip songs, and Piper's trying to keep her eyes on the road while cracking up at Alex's total nonsensical attempt at the lyrics to _Come On, Eileen_ when a flash goes off.  She glances over to see Alex smirking and lowering the disposable camera from her face.  

It takes a little over two hours before they're driving through some tiny coast town that looks like it's practically shut down for the non-summer months.  They park near a stretch of empty beach, and it's cool and windy enough that they have to keep their jackets on and zipped.  The sky is a muted white, the ocean gray beneath it.  With her leather jacket and black beanie pulled over her hair, Alex could probably look like a black and white photograph even in color film, but she won't give up the camera for Piper to test the theory.  She ruins the desaturated effect by grabbing three Twizzlers at once and sticking them halfway in her mouth, the red ends hanging out between her lips.  When Piper laughs at her, she takes a picture.  

It takes half an hour of not seeing another person before Piper will agree to open the wine.  They take off their shoes and roll up their jeans, walking in the very edge of the freezing cold surf, passing wine and candy back and forth.  Piper stains her tongue with Skittles, Alex tosses back fistfuls of pixie sticks, and soon it's hard to tell if they're working more off an alcohol buzz or a sugar high.

There's nothing to any of it.  Just Alex and Piper, their words and their laughter and their hands and their lips.  That's the whole day.  Piper would be hard pressed to explain to someone like Polly how they fill so much time, but two, three, four hours slip away with utter ease.  They fall asleep for half an hour on the blanket they'd brought from Piper's house, napping off the effects of the wine, and when they wake up the chill in the air is pushing down harder.

Piper sits up and brings the sand covered blanket with her, attempting to wrap the corner around her shoulders.  Alex smiles blearily up at her, beanie slipping off and leaving her hair a staticky mess.  Somehow, she's still got the damn camera beside her; she aims and clicks before Piper can stop her.

"Should we head back?" 

Surprisingly adamant, Alex shakes her head.  "No, let's not go home yet."

"It's getting kinda cold, Al." 

"I know.  We can go somewhere else."  She smiles and holds out her hand.  "Give me the keys."

Piper obliges, and they pick the blanket up in a bundle holding what's left of their snacks, tossing it in the trunk of the car.  Piper closes her eyes and leans the passenger seat as far as it will go, happy to sit back and let Alex take control of the day.  

She opens her eyes when the car eases to a stop.  They're in the near empty parking lot of a dinky little movie theater, the kind that still has an old fashioned marquee circling the entrance.  Alex asks the middle aged man working the booth which showing has sold the least tickets, and he gives her a dry look.  "Take your fuckin pick." 

So they go see  _Rushmore,_ sitting in the middle of an empty theater.  Piper lifts up the armrest between their seats and drapes her legs over Alex's, leaning against her shoulder.  For the most part, they just sit like that, genuinely watching, but then the movie's soundtrack kicks onto a song Piper loves, and she feels the entire experience of today hit her at once:  the sweet, fun simplicity of it, the way the distance and unfamiliarity of the town makes them feel hidden.  

She shifts, swinging her left leg over so she's straddling Alex's lap.  She leans down and kisses her, one hand wrapped around her neck, the other reaching into the pocket of her jacket.  When she feels Alex smile against her lips, Piper leans back, snatching her hand up, camera at the ready, and a flash of white light bursts between them.  She hopes she got that smile.

"Geez, Pipes, blind me why don't you?"  Alex asks, screwing her eyes shut and pushing her glasses up on her head like that's going to help.  

"Sorry," Piper says with a smug grin.

Alex recovers quickly, then leans up to reclaim Piper's lips.  After a minute or two of that, she shifts her hips underneath Piper.  "Let's move."

"Huh?"

"Let's move seats."  She smirks.  "Just in case."

They stand up and hurry to the back corner of the theater.  They don't see the end of the movie.

 

* * *

 

Alex can't do it.

She'd had a vague sort of plan to bring it up toward the end of the day, just before they left to head home.  That way, no matter how bad the initial blow up, they'd have two inescapable hours in a car together.

She doesn't examine that plan too hard; doesn't ask herself why it seems so damn important to make sure Piper  _can't_ just walk away.

But anyway.  Not today.  Today was too good.  She can't bring herself to taint it.

But, really, that's everything with Piper.  

And that's the whole problem.  

It's all too beautiful to ruin.  

 

* * *

 

 

Alex stays over at her house again, but they split up Thursday morning when Piper has to fulfill a promise to have lunch at her dad's office.  

She calls the apartment as soon as she gets done, but no one answers.  So Piper stretches out on the couch and tries to make some headway on a play she's supposed to read for class, until just before three o'clock when her mother asks if she'd mind picking Cal up at school.  

It's weird, driving up to the high school, past the bleachers where Alex used to hang out instead of go to classes - the bleachers where they had their horrible falling out.  She should talk Alex into driving here one night when it's closed, late enough so even the sports teams and the marching band have gone home.  They should have sex on those goddamn bleachers, cleanse that memory for good.  

Cal smirks a little at her when he slides into the car.  "Didn't know you were coming.  Feeling nostalgic for the old stomping grounds?" 

"I wasn't until I got here," she replies honestly, suppressing her own smirk.  "By the way, when are you gonna get a license?"  

"Maybe when oil stops being the downfall of modern society."  Piper cuts her eyes at him, skeptical.  Cal grins.  "Or when I pass the test.  Whichever comes first."

"You failed?"

"Twice.  Gotta wait another month."

Piper laughs.  "Nice going."  Her eyes land on the Sonic sign down the street, and she remembers Alex getting called to an emergency shift the other day. "You want a slushy or something?"

"A  _slushy_?" 

"Fine.  I'll just get myself one."  Piper pulls into a space at Sonic, rolling down her window and waiting until one of the servers walks by.  She doesn't recognize him, but yells out, "Excuse me?"

He turns.  "You can order through the speaker, we just bring the food."

Piper suppresses an eyeroll.  "I know.  I was just wondering if Alex was working?"  

"Who?"

"Alex Vause."  

The kid makes a face like she's just screwing with him.  "Never heard of him."

" _Her_."

"O _kay_ , either way.  No one named Alex works here."  

"Are you new or something?" 

"Not for five months, no."  He waves a hand at the menu.  "Order at the speaker."

Oblivious to the significance of the exchange, Cal pokes her arm, "I changed my mind, actually.  I'll have a Blue Raspberry Blast.  Large."

Distracted, Piper orders his slushy over the speaker and doesn't get one for herself.  Luckily, it's brought out by a different server, a girl who was definitely working there when Piper used to come visit Alex.

"Oh, hey," she says as she takes Piper's cash.  "You're Alex's friend, right?"

"Yeah."

"How's she doing?"

Piper's stomach swoops in confusion.  "I...you haven't seen her?" 

"Nah, I don't think she's been by since last summer.  Not that I blame her.  If I ever quit this shithole, doubt I'll be swinging by for a visit."

She's quiet as they drive away, brain fogged over with utter confusion.  Cal's watching her warily.  "You didn't know Alex quit her job?"

"No, she didn't mention it," Piper says flatly.  "I'm just gonna drop you off at home, okay?"

 

* * *

 

Alex is in the apartment putting away groceries when her cell phone rings.  "Hello?"

"Yes, is this Alex Vause?"

She frowns slightly, on immediate alert.  Not many people have this number.  "It is..."

"This is Derek Littleton, we met about the apartment the other day?"

"Oh, right, hi."  She relaxes instantly; she'd put this number down on the application, without showing Piper, but hadn't expected to hear back so soon.

"I just wanted to let you know the application's been approved.  You're all set for the apartment."

Alex grins, feeling a rush of something almost like victory.  "Thanks, that's great."

"I know the school's out for spring break this week, think you two could come by Monday afternoon to sign the lease?"

"Sure..."  Alex pauses, trying to remember Piper's class schedule.  "Five o'clock be okay?"  She can just ride back to Northampton with Piper on Sunday night, and get a bus ticket home again.  

"Sounds good.  And I'll need a check for the security deposit upfront."

"Not a problem.  What about the first and last month's rent?"

"Nah, no need for that until you move in in August."

"Great.  Thanks for the call, I'll see you Monday."

Alex hangs up and stares at the phone for a moment, overwhelmed with the conflict between excitement and dread.

This is really happening.  She and Piper have a place waiting for them, and in five months they are allowed to move in and live there together.

She's just gotta fucking tell her.  It's like she's been building a house of cards, and it's almost finished and so goddamn close to perfect, but this one final move could bring the whole thing down.  

Then there's an insistent knock on the door, and Piper comes in without waiting for an answer, bringing gusts of a hurricane that send the whole tower scattering.  

Her whole face is screwed up into a troubled, bewildered expression, but for a second Piper just stares at Alex like she's not even sure where to start.  Already fear's got a light hold on the back of Alex's neck, even as she reassures herself it's fine, that there's no way she could  _know_.  

But then Piper says, "Did you quit Sonic last summer?," and the fear's grip becomes a stranglehold.  

It takes Alex a moment to scramble for a calm, measured tone, one that doesn't sound like she's been caught, one that suggests this is no big deal.  "Yes."

"Okay..."  Piper squints, and nods for a long time.  "Okay.  See...I don't even know what to do with that?  Because it's a very, very odd thing to lie about.  But it's also not just a  _you never mentioned it_ kind of lie.  There were a  _lot_ of specific instances where you told me you just got off work, or you weren't home when I called because you were working, or,  _oh yeah_ , that you had saved up money for the apartment  _by working_."

"I do have the money for the apartment," Alex puts in, still determinedly calm.

" _How_?"  Piper demands, but then seems to unsure if that's the most pertinent question.  "I don't get this, Alex."

"I know.  Just...sit down, okay?"

"I don't want to sit.  I don't want this to be some long drawn out story, I want you to just  _explain_ it, right now." 

"I'm gonna explain.  But that won't necessarily be fast."  

Piper just stares at her.  She doesn't sit.

"Okay."  Already Alex is faltering.  For the many times she'd planned and then backed out of this moment, she never really got as far as picking out the words.  "Okay.  Remember that guy at the bar the other night?  The one who thought I had drugs?"  The muscles in Piper's face are tight.  Alex can't tell if she's inferring anything.  "He...thought that because my boss is his dealer."

"What?"  Piper's face pinches in complete confusion.  "Your...old boss at Sonic?  You left because he's a drug dealer?"

Jesus, this is even harder than she thought.  "No.  My _current_ boss.  I guess."  Alex goes quiet for a moment, watching Piper slowly follow that thought.  Then, remembering, she adds, "Remember, I told you about that guy I met at the concert?  Who offered me a job?"

" _Yeah_ , and then you never mentioned it again.  I figured he never called."

"He did."  Alex goes quiet, waiting for the unavoidable question.  But Piper's face is still set in intense, dark concentration, like she's desperately trying to put two and two together and come up with something other than four.  

Finally, Piper says, "So your boss is a _drug dealer_.  Which makes you....what?"  

"He's not exactly...not just a dealer.  He imports." 

"Imports  _what_?"

"Heroin."  

Piper makes a sound, like a laugh being strangled.  Her eyes are huge.  "This is a joke, right?  You're fucking with me."

"I know it seems crazy.  So far they've mostly had me working with the drug mules - "  

" _Drug mules_."  The pitch of Piper's voice is climbing.  

"It's a really, really good opportunity, Pipes.  The money - "

"An _opportunity_?  You sound like it's a _career."_

"It kind of would be.  In a couple years, Fahri says I could start traveling - "

" _Years_?  Jesus, Alex.  What the fuck is wrong with you?  It's _illegal_."

"I _know_ that _._ But this has been going on for decades, okay?  They're smart about it." _  
_

Piper presses the heels over her hands over eyes.  "You sound like such an idiot right now."

"If you'll just  _listen - "_

"Are you fucking kidding?  You've been _lying_ to me for the past year, Alex.  You're _nineteen_ _years_ _old_  and you're working for a..."  She struggles for the word.

"Drug cartel."

Piper's muttering under her breath, "Fucking shit, Jesus fucking Christ..."

" _Piper_.  I _am_ sorry about lying.  Really sorry. I kept wanting to tell you, and I'd plan to, and then I'd back out, and I didn't know how to.  But it didn't...it doesn't have anything to do with  _us_." 

"It has everything to do with us!  Jesus, Alex, I don't even know who you are."  

For the first time, Alex's determined calm fails her, and her face hardens.  "That is  _bullshit_.  And you know it."  

"No, I actually, genuinely don't."  With an almost dazed look on her face, Piper starts toward the door.  "I'm gonna go..."

"The  _fuck_ you are, Piper.  You don't get to just walk out, give me a chance to talk to you about it - "

"Oh, like you've wanted to talk about it this whole time you've been complaining to me about shifts at fucking Sonic?"   _  
_

"I _told_ you I'm sorry I didn't tell you.  I didn't want you looking at me the way you are right now, that goddamn judgy face like I'm the delinquent skipping class and you're the perfect honor student."

Piper makes a scoffing sound.  "Yeah, because this is the same thing.  I think I should be allowed to judge you for being a  _drug dealer_."

"I already told you, I'm not _fucking_ dealing - "

"I  _don't want to talk about it_.  I can't...I can't even believe we've gotten this far into this conversation.   _Fuck_ , Alex."  

"They called about the apartment."  It just slips out, not so much a subject change as a Hail Mary.  "We got it."

Piper shoots Alex a disbelieving look.  "I'm not living in an apartment you're paying for with _drug money_."

Alex's chest tightens.  It takes her a second to find some anger to grab onto.  "Well, you aren't living in one paid for with minimum wage from  _Sonic_ either, Piper.  Not in fucking Northampton anyway.  That was  _never going to work._ You really think I could ever get full time hours there, with all the high school kids they hire?" 

"Oh, right, how stupid of me to  _believe what you told me_."

"Jesus, I'm not _blaming_ you.  I'm just telling you...the apartment isn't _possible_ without this." 

"Then I don't want it." 

The words suck all the air out of the room.  They _sound_  heavy when she says it, and Alex knows there a whole set of possible implications to that statement.  

Ever since she visited Smith last semester, the apartment had taken on even more meaning.  They couldn't do four full years of the distance, of Piper immersed in her new life and Alex resenting it.  The apartment was everything.  The apartment was the future of their relationship.

And Piper doesn't want it.

In the silence that ensues, she turns and walks out the door, without clarifying what she actually means.

She's just gone.

 

* * *

 

Piper gets two blocks away from Alex's apartment before she has to pull over and park on the side of a street, too frazzled to drive safely.

She can't even get her head around this.  She's stuck on the bit where Alex lied to her for eight months, because that, at least, she knows how to react to.  That's easy, understandable anger.  

The part where she's apparently working with drug mules, working _for_ people who import heroin...that doesn't even seem real.  This isn't something that happens in real life, and Piper has no script for it.  

Even as Alex stood in front of her, _telling_ her about working for a drug cartel, Piper kept thinking, almost on a loop, _Alex wouldn't do that_.

Drug cartels don't enter her world.  People she knows don't become criminals.  

As furious as she is about Alex lying, there's a fleeting moment where Piper stupidly, childishly wishes she could just go back to not knowing.  She was blissful in the ignorance: her relationship was great, they were moving into an apartment together, everything was planned and settled and certain.

And now Piper has no fucking clue what to do with this.

 

* * *

 

Alex can't figure out what's going on.

She keeps telling herself that she and Piper have been together for two years, have been best friends for ten, and there's no way they could break up without her being certain it happened.  But really, she isn't sure, and it's making her panic.

It feels, on the surface, that Piper had taken it worse than Alex had expected, but considering how scared she'd been for so long to tell the truth, that probably isn't the case.  She knows Piper, even if Piper claims not to know her anymore.  Piper panics, and Piper runs, but Piper also said once that there was no scenario where they were just _over_.

So Alex gives her a day to freak out.  She forces herself not to call, or drive by the Chapman's house, or care that Piper hasn't called her.  

Just for a day.

On Friday afternoon, she calls the Chapman's number and is relieved when Cal's the one to answer.  

"Hello?"

"Hey, Calvin."

"Hobbs?"

"Yeah, it's me.  Listen, is Piper there?"  

"Um...no."

"Do you know where she is?"  

"Yeah..."  He draws the syllable out, sounding confused.  "She seriously didn't tell you?  She went back to school this morning."  

" _What_?  She's supposed to be here until Sunday."

"Yeah, I dunno, she just told Mom and Dad she had an exam to study for, and she drove back last night." 

Alex's lips form a silent curse.  "Got it. Thanks, kiddo."

 _Fuck_ her.

Of course she went back to school.  Of course she ran to hide in the new life she'd built away from Alex.  

Isn't this exactly what Alex was always afraid of?  That Smith College and Northampton and Piper's friends there were just creating a safety net for Piper?  Making it easier for her to walk away?

Fuck that.  She doesn't get to do this.  She doesn't get to take one brief conversation, immediately after the initial shock, and _leave_.  This doesn't get to be just her decision.  

 

* * *

 

The dorm is unsettlingly quiet with most of the campus still on break, even though the dorms opened back up today.  Piper almost regrets the spontaenous decision; she'd wanted to escape back into the distraction of her college life, but instead she'll have two days of solitude to brood over Alex.

Her stomach knots up every time Piper thinks about leaving without saying goodbye; Alex's apartment is  _always_ her last stop on the way back to school.

She knows she's being a coward, running away with everything unresolved, but the truth is Piper's waiting for everything to work itself out.  It's still impossible to imagine Alex doing this in the first place, but even more impossible is the idea that she'd keep it up after Piper's reaction.

So she waits for Alex to call and tell her it's over, that she quit, that she was desperate and stupid and she's sorry for lying.

But the phone doesn't ring.  

Maybe Alex doesn't even know she left.

So Piper spends two days going back and forth between the library, where she obsessively searches for information about international drug cartels and heroin importers, and her dorm room, where she lies on her bed and waits for the phone and tries to swallow back fear over what it means that Alex isn't calling. 

Polly gets back around noon on Sunday to find Piper still in her pajamas in the dorm room.  

"What are you doing back so early?  Thought Supercunt likes to keep you occupied until the very last minute?"  

"I had some work to do."

"Uh oh.  Trouble in paradise?"

"No, we're fine," Piper says firmly.  God, she can never tell Polly about this.  She's careful never to give Polly any new ammunition against Alex, and this would be like handing over a new, upgraded weapon.

That evening, they keep the dorm room door propped open so everyone returning on the hall can pop in to say hi and catch up. Piper's sitting at her desk, finally doing the work she'd claimed to be returning to work on, when Maggie, one of her neighbors from across the hall, leans her head into the room, expression awkward.   "Hey, Piper?"

"Yeah?"

"I, uh, think your girlfriend's outside."  

Polly's head whips around, eyebrows up, her face infinitely curious.  Piper blinks at Maggie.  "What?"

"Tall, black hair, glasses, right?"

"Yeah."

"Thought so.  She's outside."

At that moment, the dorm phone rings.  

Polly and Piper look at each other.

"Don't answer that," Piper blurts out, already standing and pulling on her coat.

She's expecting to find Alex downstairs at the public phones, having followed someone into the building, but instead she's outside with a cell phone pressed to her ear.  She hangs up when Piper walks out.

Already Piper's thrown off balance, hung up on the cell phone.  "When'd you get that?"

"Awhile ago."

Piper shakes her, disbelieving.  "So I could have been calling you at anytime, but you couldn't give me the number without explaining why you had it.   _Awesome_."

Alex looks tense and edgy, and her immediate silence makes Piper almost regret going on the defensive.  She _wants_ this to be over.  She _wants_ to accept the apology.

"Listen," Alex says finally, opting to ignore Piper's dig.  "Can we take a walk or something?  So we can talk?"

"Sure."  Relieved, Piper falls into step beside Alex as they heard toward the main part of campus.  Piper doesn't even question Alex's presence; her showing up in person makes up for the days without a phone call.  Maybe this is why Piper left in the first place; she wanted to be followed.  She wanted the grand gesture the following implies.

When they reach the edge of the academic part of campus, as though she'd set herself the distance as a goal, Alex says in a low, serious voice, "You can't do that, you know.  You can't just fucking...take off after one fight."  

"Well.  I was pissed."  They aren't looking at each other, walking close but not touching, their eyes on the ground.  "You've never lied to me like that."

"I know.  And I'm sorry.  I know it doesn't matter, but I felt like shit about it."  She's quiet for a moment, waiting for forgiveness.  When it doesn't come, Alex says, sounding like the words have to be forcibly extracted from her throat, "I was scared.  I was really scared to tell you. I was going to do it when I first came to visit, but that got fucked up so fast that I got even more worried about it."

Piper thinks back to that weekend, how they'd felt so damn precarious.  "I can understand that."

"I want to tell you how it started."  Alex waits a beat, giving Piper a chance to protest but not waiting for outright encouragement, before she continues.  They walk the entire perimeter of the quad as Alex tells Piper about Fahri, and the way he explained the cartel to her, every idyllic dream he put in her head to talk her into it.  She talks about telling herself she'd only do it long enough to secure apartment money, but then got seduced by the promise of world travel, of financial security, of the thought of being able to let her mom stop working someday.

When she finishes, she's looking at Piper with an achingly familiar expression: it's the look Alex gets when she's projecting utter confidence in what she's saying, but can't quite hide how desperately she cares about Piper's opinion.  She needs to know Piper understands; that Piper doesn't think she's a bad person.

"I get it," Piper says finally.  "I can totally see how that would be...appealing."  

Relief washes over Alex's face.  "And the thing is, Pipes, I'm _good_ at it.  Like, really fucking brilliant, actually.  It's a good feeling."

 "You could be good at a lot of stuff, Al."

"Yeeeah, but skilled at remembering dinner orders doesn't have the same thrill," she deadpans.

"Then we'll find you something else.  Something more...intellectually stimulating."  

Alex stops walking to regard Piper with confusion.  "What are you talking about?  Something  _else_?  You just said you get it."

"I said I get why you got sucked in in the first place..."  Piper's voice trails off, and she's hit with the realization that she may have jumped to conclusions about Alex showing up.  "Wait, you're not quitting?"  

" _No_." 

"Then why are you here?"

Instantly, Alex's eyes narrow and flash.  "Because you fucking cut and run, Piper!  You didn't even give me a chance to explain."

" _Explain_?  Jesus...you could go to _prison_.  How does that not matter to you?"

"I'm not planning on going to prison," Alex says dismissively, as though the whole worry is ignorant.   

"You didn't tell me for eight months, Alex. That means you  _know_ it's wrong."

"No, it means I know  _you'd_ think it was."

"What about your mom?  Does she know?"  

Piper can practically see Alex's defenses shoot up.  Tersely, she answers, "No."

" _See?_ "  Piper has a suddenly flash to junior year, finding Alex in the dilapidated drug den of a house, high on LSD or whatever the fuck, refusing to leave with Piper.  One call to Diane, though, and she'd been out of there.  "Maybe I should just talk to her about this."

Alex gaze hardens into a glare.  "Fuck you, Pipes.  Did I go running to your parents to tell them we were dating?"  

Piper lets out a dry, scoffing laugh.  "Are you really making that comparison?" 

"Only in terms of how much we  _don't_ want our parents to find out," Alex says softly.  "So what does that say about  _you?"_

Piper looks away, fighting back the guilt that always flares to life when that subject comes up.  She sighs, frustrated, and leans back against the brick wall surrounding the flowerbeds outside the math building.  

Silence pervades for a moment, and then Alex reaches into the inside pocket of her leather jacket, her tone conciliatory.  "Look...I was gonna give you this before you went back to school, but you kinda jumped the gun on that one."  She hands Piper a small velvet box.  "Since we didn't see each other on Valentine's Day."

Caught off guard, Piper blinks at her in surprise, then opens the box.  Her breath catches in her throat.  "Jesus, Al..."  It's a necklace, simple and elegant and beautiful, silver with a design of small diamonds.  "It's gorgeous."

Alex gives her a crooked, close mouthed smile, taking the necklace out and gently reaching around to fasten it around Piper's neck.  Her palms skim across skin, taking their time trailing down to touch the necklace.  "Looks good on you," she says softly, the hand not holding the jewelry drifting almost absently down to Piper's chest.

Piper nearly falls into the moment, barely stopping herself from leaning into the touch and kissing Alex.  But something about the whole image jars her out of it.  It's not _like_ Alex, these sorts of gifts, and suddenly the whole thing strikes Piper as stupid and sad.  She draws back slightly and mutters, "I liked it better when you just gave me mixtapes." 

Alex's hands stiffen against her, and her face twists into an ugly, scornful expression.  "Yeah, Pipes," she says coldly, eyes roaming pointedly around the immaculate campus and its ivy covered buildings.  "You've got  _such_ simple, cheap taste." 

"I mean it," Piper says, reaching back to unfasten the necklace and handing it back even as Alex takes a physical step away from her.  "Do you really think this is what I want from you?"

Alex closes her eyes, exhaling sharply out of her nose, like she's having to work hard to restrain her sudden fury.  "I don't know what the fuck you want, Piper, and neither do you.  You want to go to a great college that'll impress your parents, but you have no idea what you want to do with the degree.  You want to pay for the goddamn apartment - sorry, you want  _me_ to - and not use your Daddy's money, but you still don't want them to know you're living with me."  

Alex pauses, not looking at Piper, frowning deeply, like she's working something out.  "No, okay, you know what you want?  You want me to fit into your life  _exactly_ the way it is now.  That way you can keep living up to expectations, just like you always do, and I just have to make it work.  Eventually, Piper, I'm not gonna fit in anymore.  I can't be the dutiful girlfriend waiting for you at home, and hanging out with your boring ass college friends.  That doesn't work for me, Piper.  And trust me, you don't want me like that either."

"What the hell does that have to do with you joining a fucking drug ring?"

"It's something that's  _mine._ And it has nothing to do with you, you don't have to have any part of it.  But it means I can pay to get an apartment and move in with you.  I can get a fucking car, I can pay for dinner.   _Me_.  I don't have to sit back and let you do everything.  You aren't the only one with choices."

Piper closes her eyes, and without speaking she stands up and starts walking again, back in the direction they came.  Alex falls into step with her.  For awhile Piper can't think of anything to say.  Alex is wrong about the drug ring, she's so wrong it's crazy, but she's mostly right about everything else, which makes the arguing hard.  Piper's felt it for months, that vague sense of guilt over the arrangements as she'd understood, but she's never been able to work it out so thoroughly.  

"What are you thinking?"  Alex asks eventually.  

"I don't know.  I don't...I don't know how to just accept this.  How to act like it's normal."  Piper squeezes her eyes shut, feeling the sudden, burning threat of tears. "I don't know how to be with you like this."

The words fall like a cleaver through the air between them, and Alex stops walking, panic leeching into her eyes for barely a second before they flash with hot accusation. "You _said_ you'd still want to be with me no matter what I do with my life."  

Piper freezes, her own words echoed back at her, the moment she said them replaying in her mind, from a whole new angle. There's a note of genuine shock in her voice as she states, "You _knew_."  Alex doesn't answer.  "You were already working for them, and you weren't telling me about it, and you fucking tricked me into saying it was okay."  

Alex's question, that day at the bus station:  _P_ _romise me you'll still want me no matter what I end up doing_.  It had opened up some cut in Piper's chest, and she'd thought about it for weeks, how vulnerable Alex had been in that moment.  

In reality, though, it was all manipulation.  She was getting herself preemptive absolution.  

"I didn't tell you how to answer," Alex retorts feebly.  

"No, but you knew that wasn't what I thought you meant."

"So what did you think I meant?"  Alex demands, a challenge in her eyes.  

She waits, but Piper just tightens her jaw and doesn't say it.  She won't play that game, won't list Alex's alternate option, won't acknowledge that she was looking at a thankless, exhausting life just like her mother's.

Alex's face lights with grim triumph, as though she's just remembered something, "What about that crap about how there's no scenario where we're just over?  I didn't make you say _that_."  

"I'm not saying we're over," Piper's voice trembles and catches.  The whole world feels delicate, suddenly, made of glass.  She's terrified. 

"So what  _are_ you saying?"  At the surface, Alex's voice is all impatience, but there's a tremor underneath, the kind that warns of a coming earthquake.  

The campus is so dark and so quiet.  It takes Piper a moment to find the words.  "I can't...be with you if you're gonna keep doing this.  You can't have both."  There's a muscle pulsing in Alex's jaw, and her eyes look bright and angry in the darkness.  "I'm not...it's up to  _you_ , Alex."

"Of _course_ it is," Alex's voice is quiet, but the words slam into Piper anyway.  There's something she's never heard before in her voice, something bordering on disgust.  "Of course you have to tell yourself that.  Like it's not your fault.  But if you really think I have a  _choice_ , you're even more of a spoiled, naive asshole than I thought."  She takes a step closer, practically bearing down on Piper.  "If I stop?  There  _is no apartment_ , Piper.  I stay right where I am, for at  _least_ another year.  And we both know this year only worked because we knew it was the only one."

Piper shoves her hands in her pockets and starts walking again, Alex following her.  She's not sure if she's more pissed off or panicked.  "I could talk to my dad," she says finally, the word coming out hurried and desperate.  "Tell him I'm getting a place with Polly, he doesn't have to know - "

" _Fuck_ that.  No.  I'm done with that."  Alex is practically yelling, but then she lowers her voice and adds, "That's the whole fucking problem, Pipes.  I'm not allowed in your  _real life_.  And if I don't move here, if I _can't_...that's just going to get more and more true.  I won't be part of your life here, _or_ your life with your family.  And eventually there's just not going to be room for me anymore."  

Piper whips her head around to look at Alex, and demands, voice thick and trembling, "That's...Alex, you've been the most important person in my life for  _ten years_."

"Yeah," Alex mutters bitterly.  She's staring straight ahead as they walk, like she's determined to be unmoved by the tears starting to roll down Piper's cheeks.  "As long as I don't screw up the other parts of it." 

They walk in harsh, heavy silence for a moment, nearing Piper's dorm again.  Her gasping, shaky breaths seem loud in the quiet night air, but Alex still doesn't react, doesn't take her hand or soften her voice or anything.  She just glares straight ahead, her whole body held in stiff, careful control.  

When they end up outside Piper's dorm, they stop on the sidewalk and look at each other.  Piper wraps her arms around herself, protective.  "I don't know what to do," Piper says in a small, fragile voice.  It's terrifying, because what she really means is  _I don't know how to save this_.

"Me either," Alex says quietly.

Piper sets her jaw, wiping the sleeve of her jacket under her wet eyes.  She'd been the one to throw down the ultimatum; she really thought Alex would be forced to take it and back them away from this edge.  Finally, Piper asks in a small voice, "You really won't quit?"

"No," Alex says, eyes boring into Piper's.  "But I'm won't leave you, either.  You don't get to put that on me."

A sob tears itself out of Piper's throat, and she presses a hand over her eyes. Alex has never, ever been able to keep her distance while Piper cries, but she's doing it now.  

That realization makes Piper pull herself together.  She lifts her chin and curls her trembling lips together until she can force out, "Well, I guess that's it."

"Is it?"  She's never heard Alex that quiet.  

"Yeah.  It is."  They stand there for a minute, frozen by the moment, then Piper chest constricts dangerously, fresh sobs rising in her throat, and she turns away to head toward the dorm.  

Abruptly, Alex's fingers close around Piper's forearm, grip tight.  "Say it."  Piper's inches from the door, one hand holding her keys halfway to the doorknob.  It takes her a second to look back.  There are tears on Alex's face, and it knocks the wind out of Piper; she'd missed the moment they fell.  Alex's eyes are blazing, and she leans close to Piper, clenching out through gritted teeth, "You have to  _sa_ _y it,_ you fucking coward."  

Maybe it's that, Alex  _finally_ admitting what Piper has always known about herself, that perversely makes Piper just brave enough to lift her eyes to Alex when she whispers, "I can't be your girlfriend anymore."

Alex lets out a stuttered, gasp of a breath, loosening her grip on Piper's arm but not pulling away.  They hold each others' gaze for a long, loaded moment, and then Piper finally slides out of Alex's grasp and stumbles inside the dorm, shutting the door and leaving Alex alone on the other side.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was inadvertently the longest chapter of anything I've ever written...and originally this story was supposed to be a two shot, and part one was gonna end even later than here. But instead i'm making it three...two should be significantly shorter than the others, a sort of transitional middle, and I've already written the end of it so update should be quackish. Definitely let me know what you think so far!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I realized partway through writing this chapter, which includes Piper's birthday, that thanks to Zodiac obsessed inmate in 2x01, we do in fact know Piper's birthday. Then I realized it was in the summer, which is unfortunate for my timeline purposes. So, since we're in AU, and have already adjusted birthdays enough to make Al and Pipes the same age, hopefully everyone's cool with me taking some liberties with the date itself. If I've thrown off your astrological understanding of Piper's character...apologies.

Piper only gets halfway up the stairs of the dorm before she starts crying, so by the time she stumbles back into the room she's sniffling and scrubbing at her face like a pitiful little kid.  Polly's putting on makeup in front of her mirror, but as soon she sees Piper she puts down the eyeliner, a startled look on her face.  "...where's Alex?'

Piper just shakes her head.

Polly's eyes go wide.  "You guys didn't...break up?"

The look on her face clearly answers the question, and to Polly's slight credit, her expression doesn't betray anything but surprise and sympathy.  She takes a few tentative steps toward Piper, arms out, but Piper shrugs away from the touch and heads for her bed, curling up and facing the wall.

Even so, after a moment, she feels Polly's hand comfortingly rubbing the length of her arm.  Piper stiffens, squeezing her eyes shut, not giving in to the comfort.

"What happened?"  

"I don't want to talk about it," Piper mumbles into her pillow.  She'll never tell Polly about Alex and the drug ring.  It would feel like a failure in loyalty.  

"What can I do?"

"Were you about to go somewhere?"

"Some people are hanging out in the super suites on Grace's hall...but I'm not gonna go, okay, Pipe, I'll stay here."

"No, go."  It comes out too desperate, almost harsh.  Piper makes herself roll over.  "Really.  It's fine, I just...I wanna be alone.  Sorry."

"It's fine, Pipe, whatever you want."  In spite of the words, Polly looks the slightest bit hurt, but Piper just turns to face the wall again, unable to worry about that.   Polly wants to play the Best Friend role, she always does, and most of the time they resemble some passable semblance of that, but in moments of genuine crisis, Piper can't quite manage it.

_Alex_ is her best friend.  

The extent of the loss slams into Piper again, and she curls further in on herself, blinking out fresh tears.  She feels Polly withdraw, and there's a quiet shuffling around their room for a few minutes before Polly says from the general direction of the doorway, "You sure you'll be okay by yourself?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Call Grace's if you need anything, okay?"  The door clicks open but doesn't shut yet.  Polly sounds hesitant when she adds, "Um...is she, like...still here?"

"What?"

"I mean.  Does she have a ride home?  Or am I gonna run into her still stalking the dorm?"

Piper's insides seize up; she hadn't stopped to think about that.  For a second she physically _feels_ her resolve weaken, and an instinct shoots through her to go back outside, check if Alex is still there.  At least she should stay the night, there's no Greyhound bus leaving this late.

But then she shakes her head, realizing, "She can afford a hotel."

 

* * *

 

Numb, Alex walks across the campus on autopilot and ends up on one of the free campus buses.  She rides it in circles, disconnected from her surroundings, as students drift on and off, dressed to go out even though it's Sunday, squeezing fun out of the last few hours of spring break.  

She doesn't cry.  Doesn't do anything except hold her phone in her hand, even though it's not going to ring.  Piper doesn't have the number and wouldn't call her even if she did.

She rides the bus for almost two hours, around and around this campus she hates, twice passing the apartment building they are scheduled to sign a lease for tomorrow.  She won't call and cancel.  She won't answer the landlord's follow up calls.  He'll rip up their application and it will be like all their grand plans never existed.

When the last two students on the bus get off at the edge of campus, along the street full of bars and restaurants where Alex had eaten dinner with Piper and her friends during her first visit, Alex follows them off and stands pointlessly on the sidewalk.  For a moment, all practicalities seem to fail her.  She feels oddly lost and abandoned, standing here alone on the edge of a street in a town where she doesn't, and won't, live.

_Pull it the fuck together_ , she orders herself, pulling out her cell phone and dialing the generic number for Information.  In half an hour, she's in a taxi, on her way to the nearest hotel.  

She won't be handing over a check for a security deposit tomorrow, so Alex treats herself to most of the contents of the minibar.  She gets drunk and passes out so she doesn't have to fall asleep feeling the finality of everything she just lost. 

 

* * *

 

On Monday morning, Piper skips her first two classes, the first time she's done that since starting school.  She stays in bed in the dorm, wearing Alex's The Who shirt she sleeps in, and works obsessively to convince herself she did the right thing, that there was no other move to be made.

On Monday morning, Alex spends a massively hungover bus ride back home letting her brain run itself in circles, following every possible scenario and convincing herself that this was always where they were going to end up.  

 

* * *

 

She manages not to cross paths with her mother in the apartment for three days, but on Thursday night, Alex waits on the couch, ready to catch Diane in the hour between her shifts at Friendly's and Wal Mart.

"Oh, hey, babe, there you are."  Diane grins at her and tosses her keys onto the coffee table.  "Wasn't even sure if you were back from Smith."    

"I took the bus back Monday."  Alex forces a smile, keeping her voice determinedly light, setting the tone of how perfectly okay she is, how none of this is a big deal.  "How was work?" 

"Can't complain.  I'll save that for after this shift...fuckin' Robert's been trying to make everyone else share in his goddamn misery all week."  She sits down beside Alex on the couch and puts her feet up on the coffee table.  Her eyes fall on the checkbook on Alex's lap.  "Payin' bills?"

"Oh, right..."  Alex opens it up and hands over the check sitting on top, self conscious in the gesture even as she tries to keep it casual.  "Here."

Diane stares down at the proffered money, lifting her eyebrows.  "What the hell's this?"

"It's what I'd saved for the security deposit and first and last month's rent in Northampton."

Concern leeches immediately into Diane's expression, and she sets the check inside.  "Then why's it written out to me?  Did something fall through with the apartment?"  

Alex meets her mom's eyes, going for a weak, wry smile.  "Well, Piper and I broke up, so it doesn't really make sense to live together."

For half a second, the full extent of Diane's shock registers on her face, but she quickly reigns it in, her expression softening.  " _Baby_..."  She slides closer to Alex on the couch.  "What happened?"

Diane's palm is rubbing soothing circles on Alex's back, and Alex tugs her lower lip between her teeth.  Any more comfort than this, and she's going to break down completely, and she's been afraid to let that happen.  She can't look her mom in the face as she murmurs, "It's probably been coming for awhile."

"Didn't look like it was coming last week."

Alex sinks her teeth in harder.  

"Al? 

"We couldn't work out the apartment.  The money wasn't gonna..."  Alex shakes her head, floundering for an explanation.  "Her dad wasn't going to help her with rent if she lived with me, even as  _roommates_ _."_

Diane's eyes flash, and she makes a low, scornful  _hmph_ sound at that.  "Well, I don't see why you have to break up over that.  You sure it wasn't just a fight?"   

"I'm sure.  It's really over.  I don't..."  Her voice catches.  "I don't fit in with her life anymore, Mom."

"Oh, babe.  I'm sorry.  But she won't be in college forever."

"But she'll be Piper forever."

"Mmm-hmm, and you love her for that.  And she loves you.  Trust me."  Diane puts an arm around Alex's shoulders, reassuring.  "I bet she comes home this summer - if not sooner - and you two work everything out."  

"Maybe."  She doesn't sound hopeful.

"Shit, and that happened this weekend?  I feel horrible, Al,I haven't even seen you all week."

"No, it's fine, I was...putting off telling you.  Wasn't ready to talk about it."

"But you're okay?"

"Yeah.  Mostly."  Something about the soft understanding in Diane's eyes makes Alex admit in a small voice, "I think I knew it wasn't going to work out."

"It's just not working out right _now_ , yeah?  You two'll get it together."  Diane's quiet for a moment, waiting to see if Alex wants to keep talking.  When she says nothing, Diane arches an eyebrow and waves the check at her.  "And this is for...?"

Alex gives her a look.  "Uh,  _rent_."

"Nice try, kiddo.  I told you, not your responsibility."  

 "But it kinda should be.  I'm nineteen, Mom.  Technically, I should be getting my own place, but now that that's not happening, I wanna help until I figure out what I'm gonna do."  Diane sighs, looking like she's about to protest, but Alex fixes her with a serious look.  "Mom.  Please?"

"Fine."  She glances at the check again, frowning slightly.  "But this is more than enough for a few months, okay? Don't argue."  

Alex nods, relieved, knowing it's a victory to get her to accept the money at all.  "Thanks."  

"C'mere..."  Diane pulls her in for a hug; predictably, Alex's throat tightens, and she moves away as soon as she can.  Diane narrows her eyes slightly, like she knows what Alex is doing, but doesn't bust her on it.  She takes the hint, patting Alex twice on the knee and then standing up.  "Gotta go change for work."

"'Kay."  

Diane grabs the cordless phone before disappearing into Alex's bedroom.  Alex sinks back into the couch cushions, relieved to have gotten that over with.

She closes her eyes and tries to clear her head until she hears her mom come back into the living room.  "Good news."

Alex opens one eye.  "Yeah?"

"Rita's gonna cover my shift."  Diane's standing there grinning at her, wearing her favorite faded jeans and a black Zeppelin shirt instead of her blue Wal-Mart vest or black Friendly's polo.  "Which means  _I_ am going to order a pizza, and  _you_  are going to drive to the video store and pick us out a movie."

"Mom..."  For a second Alex just looks at her.  Her eyes are hot.  "You don't have to take off work."

"I know I don't," Diane's voice is impatient.  "But we need a girl's night, and I'm hardly upset about missing seven hours of Robert's shit."  She shoos Alex off the couch.  "Now, go. Bring back whatever."

Slowly, Alex allows a smile creep across her face.  "Is that code for 'bring back  _Pretty Woman_ again'?"

" _No_ , Richard Gere and I can take a weekend off.  I mean it, pick out whatever you want.  Get one with that girl you like, Winona whoever."

"Thanks, Mom."

"Mushrooms on the pizza?"

" _Obviously_."

Alex had planned to go out tonight.  Between Piper being here last week, and her being gone this one, she hasn't closed in awhile, hasn't sent anyone new to Fahri, and that needs to change.  

But she's not sorry to put it off one more night.  Stretching out on the couch with beer and pizza, watching _Heathers_ and  _Thelma and Louise_ with her mom, turns out to be just what she needs.  It doesn't put everything that's come undone back together, but it's the closest Alex could hope to get right now.

When they finish the pizza and move the food out of the way, Alex leans into her mom's side, and there's something just a tad too sympathetic in the tender way Diane strokes her hair.  But Alex loves her for not pushing, for even pretending not to notice if Alex starts sniffling quietly during parts of the movies the wouldn't bring even the most sensitive viewers to tears.  

 

* * *

 

_Whenever I'm alone with you, you make me feel like I am young again_.

"Jesus. Fucking. Christ. _Enough_."

Polly hasn't been back in the dorm two seconds before she slams the door behind her and goes stomping purposefully over to Piper's small stereo.  She opens the CD slot and looks momentarily confused before remembering it also plays cassettes.  She hits eject on the tape deck, and abruptly the music cuts off.

"I'm officially issuing an embargo on The fucking Cure.  It's been two weeks of that song, nonstop.  Enough."  

Piper, lying on her bed doing reading for class, grits her teeth and lowers her short story anthology over her face, intending to conceal her too-quick anger from Polly until she gets it under control, when there's a thunk as the tape collides with the book's front cover.  Something in Piper snaps, and she hurls the book in Polly's general direction.

"Jesus!"

The book hits the wall next to Polly's closet and falls to the floor with its pages splayed, but Piper's focused on grabbing the cassette tape, completely unharmed on top of her comforter.  "Don't _throw_ my shit."  

"Oh, because only _you_ can do that?"  Polly rolls her eyes at Piper.  "The tape's fine, drama queen.  And trust me, once you get the damn song out of your head, you'll thank me."

Piper doesn't answer, just flops down on her back and stares broodily at the ceiling.  She needs to go retrieve the thrown book, but that would be admitting what a stupid thing it was to do.  

"Honestly, Pipe, this whole place needs purging.  I feel like I have to intervention you."

Piper barely registers what that might mean until Polly moves into her line of vision, standing at the foot of Piper's bed and critically studying her cork board.  "See?  Most of this needs to come down."  She's got her fingers around a thumbtack holding up a photo of Piper and Alex in ninth grade, and Piper sits up like she's been shocked.

_"Don't."_ The word is a sharp dagger of a command. "Back the fuck off, Polly."

Sighing, Polly moves away from the board with her hands up in mock surrender.  "Fine.  But this isn't helping.  I know she's your oldest friend, and your first love, and all that other stuff we're supposed to find adorable, but Piper, it's still a _break_ _up_." 

The muscles in Piper's face tense up, and she feel a knot tightening in her throat; she hates this, how quickly she goes from angry to weepy.  She lies back down on the bed.  "You don't get it.  You never have."

Polly's quiet for a moment.  When she speaks again, her voice has softened slightly.  "Then explain it to me."  Piper makes a low, scoffing sound.  "You  _can_ talk to me, Pipe. You haven't even told me why you broke up, and that's fine, but like...tell me what it is I'm not getting.  I _want_ to."

Piper's quiet at first, the words arranging themselves in her head even as she debates the wisdom of saying this to Polly.  "It's like...when you're a little kid, you love your family automatically, right?  Parents, grandparents, siblings...it's just ingrained in you, y'know?  Not even a choice.  But everything else you have to learn.  So, okay, at first, when you're young, your 'friends' are mostly functional.  Just someone to play with.  But at some point it gets deeper, and you start to genuinely love specific things about another person, right?"

"Sure..."  Polly looks dubious, like she's not sure what the child sociology summary has to do with anything.  

"Right, so first you start having friends that you love as individual people.  That you're  _choosing_.  And then, okay, you grow up a little and you hit middle school and the whole  _best friend_ thing becomes important.  You have a  _best_ _friend_ who you love practically more than anyone else, and there's a really specific, special bond there, because there's a period where being someone's _best friend_ means you're their favorite person."  Piper's talking with her hands now, her eyes bright, a crazed mix of desperation and intensity.  "Then you get around to romantic love eventually.  You fall in love with someone for the first time and it's just...completely new."  Her voice fades, vision going unfocused.  It takes her a minute to look back at Polly and explain quietly, "Alex was _all_ of that for me, okay?  Like...she's how I learned all the ways to love someone."

The heat rises to Piper's cheeks, eyes darting away.  She's waiting for Polly to throw out her usual assessments: _codependent_ or _unhealthy_ or _asshole_.    

Instead, Polly's voice is soft and thoughtful when she eventually asks, "So then why'd you break up?"

A sob rolls up her throat and catches behind clenched teeth.  

She still won't tell Polly about the drug ring.  But after two weeks of replaying that last fight in her head, examining every corner and edge, Piper can _almost_ admit the cartel isn't the entirety of the reason.

"I don't know," she whispers, voice practically throbbing with the pain of it.  "I guess being in love wasn't enough anymore."  

 

* * *

 

"How about this... _I_ am going to buy you another drink and you can tell me all about it." 

The girl leans off the bar and straightens up.  "That's okay."  She gives Alex this empty smile, her eyes already withdrawing.  "I should get back.  Nice to meet you, though."

Then she's gone, and Alex's forced, winning smile falls away.  She exhales slowly, leaning her elbows on the bar, frustrated.  

She'd barely even baited the hook, hadn't gotten beyond the initial flirtation.  

That keeps happening lately.  

Technically, she should be better at this now.  Without a girlfriend, she can take the flirtation as far as she needs to, can move it from a bar to a hotel room, can do more than simply repeatedly run into the same girls by feigned coincidence.  

But since the break up, Alex hasn't even gotten that far.

The flirtation is only part of it.  The real seduction isn't making the girls want her: it's making them wish they  _were_ her.  Alex had become a quick expert at projecting a whiff of thrill and adventure, the confidence and charisma coming off her in waves.  She makes them want to follow her right into whatever life she's living.

Or at least, she used to.  Now, she can put on the smiles and say the lines and let the soft touches linger.  But they see through the cracks, somehow, right into the gap in her chest where Piper used to be.  They can tell she isn't someone to envy.

She catches the bartender's eye and points a finger at her half empty glass.  He nods, and Alex tosses back the rest before there's a new drink in front of her.

It's not like she's been useless; she still handles things with the mules she'd recruited before, makes arrangements between them and Fahri.  But that's logistics, and Alex knows it's not why she was brought in.  

She reaches into her bag and pulls out a wad of cash to pay her tab.  Her fingers brush a seam in the lining of her purse; sewn inside the fabric are a few of the tight bindles of heroin Fahri had given her for  _treats_.  The drug mules aren't always users, but it helps if they are: easier motivation.  Alex hasn't had anyone to give it to in over a month.  

She has to get her shit together.  

 

* * *

 

It takes five shots to get her excited to go out, so only a half hour into the party Piper is lightheaded and dizzy and chasing the beat of the music in the middle of a crowded UMass frat house.  The basement is wall to wall bodies; someone's shoulder collides with Piper's elbow and half the contents of her red plastic cup end up soaking her arm.  

But who cares, it's fine, she is clustered into a knot with Polly and Grace, rolling their hips to the music, blinking against sweeping red lights.  A hand slips suddenly around the front of Piper's thigh, and she feels the weight of someone pressing flush against her back.  She rotates her neck and flicks her eyes up, getting a glimpse of stubble and dark eyes.

The guy grinds against her, matching her rhythm, and Piper shoots Polly a significant, questioning look.  She makes a show of checking out the guy before shooting Piper an approving thumbs up.  Grace nods in adamant agreement.  

Piper gulps down the remaining contents of her Solo cup and lets it drop to the floor.  She covers the guy's hand with her own, bringing it a little lower so he's touching skin instead of skirt.  He brackets a leg between both of hers, moving a little more forcefully.

They dance through the song and into the next when the guys cups her waist on both sides and turns her into him.  She gets only a two second long look at his face before he leans forward, tongue prying open her lips.  

It's drunk and clumsy and Piper keeps trying to dance as they kiss.  It's been a long time since she was this close to a guy.  Out of nowhere, she thinks about the disgust on Alex's face if she somehow knew about this.  On the heels of that, Piper imagines Alex this close to another girl, kissing someone who isn't her, and her insides twist madly, just as disgusted.  

She jolts away from the boy, stumbling into Grace when she does.  Piper murmurs a slurred, idiotic, "Thanks!"  

Polly and Grace follow her through the crowd and up the stairs to the main part of the house.  Grace touches her arm.  "You okay?"  

"Yes.  Just need more drink."

Polly's face is sweaty and flushed.  "It's weird seeing you make out with a dude."

" _Pol_ ," Grace swats at her arm.

"What?  That's not offensive, is it?"

Piper doesn't bother weighing in.  She's tired, and her mouth tastes like beer and stranger.  It _was_ weird making out with a dude.  It was weird making out with anyone who isn't Alex.

 

* * *

 

Alex waits two weeks.

Her mom's been asking for awhile now, about when Piper's getting back into town.  Alex always shrugs like she doesn't know, like she didn't go to the library to look up the Smith academic calendar and figure out the last possible day for finals.  Diane just  _hmm_ 's and gets this knowing look on her face, like she's _so_ sure that proximity will solve their problems.

Sometimes Alex almost starts to believe it.  Because, really, what is Piper going to do around here all summer?  They haven't talked for three months.  But Piper isn't used to being home without Alex around.  And if Alex misses her this much, Piper at least must be feeling something close.  

And still she waits two weeks after the date when the Smith dorms close for the spring semester before she drives by Piper's house, looking for her car.  

Five times in two days and Alex doesn't see it, but on the sixth time, Cal's getting out of an old, unfamiliar car in the Chapman's driveway, and he spots her before she can hide her face.  

Caught, Alex rolls down the window as Cal jogs to the curb.  "Nice wheels, Hobbs.  This yours?"

Alex nods.  "Just bought it."  She tilts her head toward the driveway.  "How 'bout those?  Does this mean you finally passed the driver's test?"

"Third time's the charm, right?"  He smirks.

"Congrats, Calvin."  Alex grins back, eyes habitually flicking over his shoulder toward the familiar house.  "Hey, is Piper back yet?"

Instantly, Cal frowns.  "Back?"

"From school?"  

He draws back from her window, confused.  "Did you guys have a fight or something?"

Or something.  "Why?"  

"She's staying at school for the summer, dude.  Taking classes, the whole deal."

In spite of herself, disappointment flares in Alex's gut.  "Oh.  Sounds boring."

"Right?  With anyone else I'd say it was just an excuse to party, because of the apartment and all, but Pipes probably is  _actually_  there to study."

Her lungs go cold.  "The apartment?"

"Yeah, she's living in some apartment with what's-her-face.  Polly.  They found out they could move in as early in June and  _bam_.  No more summer vacation, I guess."

Of course.  

_Fuck_.

Alex has both hands on the wheel and she looks away from Cal to stare forward through the windshield.  She sets her jaw, tenses all her muscles, holding herself with tight, deliberate stillness, as though if she gives up an ounce of control over her body she'll do something ridiculous, like scream.  Or maybe cry.

"For real, Hobbs, did you guys have a fight?  Did you have a friendship break up?" 

She laughs dryly. "We probably just grew apart."  She cranks the car.  "Don't tell her I came by, okay?"

 

* * *

 

Polly's flipping Piper's car radio back and forth, like she genuinely can't decide between Third Eye Blind and Christina Aguilera.  The backseat is crowded with shopping bags.  

"I still think we should take a trip or something."

"You've been to the beach like ten times this summer," Piper reminds her.  

"Still.   _You_ haven't.  We've barely got any summer left."

They're in the two week gap between the last summer session of classes and the start of the fall semester.  It's been a quiet, slow summer, and Piper's honestly just ready for the real flow of college to pick back up again.

"Hey, what's this from?"  Polly's reaching under the seat, grabbing for something in her purse, when she emerges with a disposable Kodak camera.  "Is this one of the Fourth of July ones?"   

Piper glances over.  "Maybe."  They'd driven to Jenna's parents' lake house and met up with the rest of their friends for a long weekend over July 4.  There had been a lot of grilling, a lot of jet skis, a lot of fireworks.  And a lot of photos.   "Either that or Grace's birthday."  

"The roll's full," Polly comments.  "Let's drop it off somewhere.  I looked good at the lake."

Piper shrugs gamely.  They drop the camera off at a CVS and kill an hour or so at a nearby mall before returning for the photos.

The cashier hands over a paper envelope, and Polly takes it upon herself to snatch it away and pull out the pictures while Piper pays.

"Oh, wait, what are these?"  Polly sounds confused and unmistakably disappointed as she rifles through the pile.  "When were you at a beach?"

Before Piper can figure out what she means, Polly's holding a photo up for her inspection:  Piper, standing in front of the ocean, her red sweater and blue coat standing out against the white sky and grey water.  Hair whipping in the wind, eyes crinkled, mouth half open in laughter. 

Piper's breath catches in her throat; the happiness in the picture nearly knocks her sideways.  Alex isn't technically in the photo, but you can  _feel_ her behind the camera.  She's right there in Piper's smile.

There's a fist punching at Piper's chest as she stands in front of the counter, flipping through photos of herself: laughing hysterically in the car, walking along sand dunes sticking out her tongue painted with rainbow colored candy, swigging from a bottle of wine at the edge of the water, giving the camera a stern, exasperated look that's barely keeping hold on a smile, curled on a blanket in the sand.  Blurred images and crappy angles and muted color.

Then, finally, Alex.  Her face too white, illuminated by a flash in the darkened movie theater, the light glaring on her glasses, her head tilted up, lips smiling and parted like they're still searching for Piper's.  

Piper's eyes are wet.  Her heart is coming unstitched.  This is like nostalgia ripped into shreds: even more than that day, even more than _Alex_ , what Piper misses most is _herself_ in those photographs.  This unfamiliar, laughing girl, giving herself completely over to her happiness.  

 

* * *

 

Fahri is in town and he invites her to come out with him and some other important people.  Alex knows that's a good sign.  She has pulled herself out of the slump, she has made herself impressive.  Things are going well.  This is what it was supposed to look like.

Not that this precise image would have entered Alex's mind: sitting in the VIP room of a high end gentleman's club, the only female who isn't there to take off her clothes.  Fahri introduces her to the others in a tone that suggests these men should know exactly who she is, like she's someone he's proud to have discovered, and Alex basks in it.

They have maybe heard of her success with female recruitment, and a few of them are eyeing her in the way that reminds Alex of every boy she hated in high school.  One of them, a bulky Arab guy with a thick accent, leans forward and asks bluntly, "So.  You really lick the pussy?"  

After only a second's hesitation, she confirms, "I do."  Alex looks him in the eye and smirks.  "Why?  You need tips?"

The men guffaw and Fahri claps a hand on her shoulder.  "I fucking love this kid." 

Her head is light and delightfully airy.  This all feels so easy.  At some point there is cash exchanged and there are lap dances, and there are worse places to be then lounging on a booth with a stripper at least five or six years older than her straddled across her lap.  The men around her, getting similar treatment, have those glazed, dopey expressions like they're being hypnotized.  Alex keeps her eyes on the woman's, narrowed and skeptical, like she's still waiting to be impressed.  She can tell the woman likes it.  Likes her.  Of course she does.

When they leave, Fahri asks if she needs more treats for the kids, and just like that she drives away with a paper bag hidden between the back seats of her car.

 

* * *

  

A month and a half into the new semester, Piper's birthday approaches, set to fall on a Sunday, and Polly insists they use the occasion to throw their apartment's inaugural party on Saturday night. 

Piper's skeptical; there are rumors that noise complaints in the off campus apartments have led to underage drinking busts, but Polly waves her off.

"Anyway, this is the last year we'll be doing house parties for birthdays.  Starting next year, we get to hit the bars."  

It takes a few weeks to amass the proper amount of liquor.  Their friends are all invited, including a decent continent of guys from both UMass and Amherst, all of whom have been told they're welcome to crash on the living room floor, and thus shouldn't hold back in drinking.

Piper buys a new dress and starts to let Polly's excitement rub off on her.  Parties can be such a logistical hassle, with the constant rotation of designated drivers and the monitoring of said DD's sobriety.  She's kind of looking forward to being able to drink as much as she wants before stumbling ten feet into her bed.

"As long as you don't stumble to bed by yourself,"  Polly adds when Piper expresses that benefit. "It's your birthday.  You're required to get laid."

Piper doesn't spend the party scoping out prospects, but it's fun anyway.  The place is full by 11:30, and at midnight everyone counts down to her official birthday, and Polly and Haley pass around cupcakes and Jello shots.  

Around one, they're crowded around every possible surface in the living room, everyone drunk and getting moreso by a speedy game of Circle of Death, when the phone rings.  Polly and Piper exchange alarmed looks. The circle goes quiet; someone cranks down the music. "Don't answer," one of the guys whispers wisely. "Probably the neighbors."

The silence varies from tense to giggly as the answering machine on the couch's end table kicks on, the outgoing message recorded with the knowledge that the most frequent callers were their parents. "Hi, you've reached Piper and Polly's place! We're almost definitely studying at the library like responsible students. But leave a message and we'll call you back whenever we get a rare free moment from academic success."

The beep sounds, and then a voice crackles over the machine. "Piper? Piper, honey, it's Diane..."  The words crack something in the air.  Diane's voice is thick and wet and so, so loud in the sudden silence of the room. "Just...just call me as soon as you get this. Alex is in the hospital."  Piper feels herself collapse inward.

Polly grabs the cordless phone from the coffee table and clicks to answer it before passing it in Piper's direction. For a second, Piper just stares at her in a dazed sort of horror, like she's offering a live grenade. Polly has to physically put the phone in Piper's hand. "H-hello?"

"Piper," Diane breathes out, and it sounds like a sob. "Did I wake you?"

"No." Piper hears her own voice, tiny and unfamiliar, coming through the answering machine. Polly hurries over to shut it off. No one else in the room seems to know where to look. "What happened, is Alex okay?"

"I found her unconscious in the bathroom, she, she wasn't breathing...enough."

"Why?" The single syllable cracks in half.

"They said it's an overdose. I don't..." There's a long pause, Diane's breathing sharp and staggered, then she asks, "Did you know she was using heroin?"

Oh, Jesus. Oh, fuck.

"No."  Tears are rolling unchecked down Piper's face, her chest heaving with building sobs. When she speaks again, the pitch of her voice is climbing, every syllable wavering. "But she's...she's gonna be okay, right? She's gonna be fine?"

"They don't know, baby." Diane's crying, too. "I just got her to the ER, I just thought you should know right away..."

"I...I..." Piper presses the back of her hand against her mouth, muffling a low, keening note that lurches out of her.  She's stood up at some point and is walking in a tight circle in the living room.  "I'm coming...I'm gonna come there, I'll leave now..."

Diane draws a shaky breath, pulling herself together enough to ask. "Have you been drinking?"

"Not...I'm okay, I can come, I'll be there - "

"No, no, Pipe. Listen to me. Don't try to drive. I can't have both of you hurt, alright? Promise me."

She can't deny Diane anything right now, so Piper nods idiotically into the phone. "But I'll find a ride. I'm gonna get there."

"Just promise it's someone sober."

"I promise. I'm coming. Tell Alex, if you get to see her, okay? Tell her I'm coming.  Please?"

"I will, baby." Diane's crying again, and Piper's never been this terrified in her life. She hangs up the phone, and for a second she does nothing.  There is a surreal sort of awfulness to this, and maybe if she doesn't give in, if she doesn't participate in the moment, it won't really be happening.

The room is dead quiet. Half the group is standing up, hovering awkwardly in the living room like they don't know if it's okay to leave.

Polly takes a tentative step toward her. "Pipe.  What happened?"

"She...she can't breathe, she isn't breathing, I don't know, I  _don't know_..."  Polly's got her arms out, but Piper shrugs away from the offered hug, sniffling messily, too drunk and panicked to get a hold of the crying. "I need a ride. Is anyone sober?"

The party guests exchange looks, then glance around at the chaos of the living room, all empty bottles and red plastic cups. One of the UMass guys clears his throat, shifting in discomfort. "You...you said party rule was for everyone to get wasted."

"God, Ian, shut the fuck up," Polly snaps. "Seriously?"

Piper's starting to hyperventilate, letting out whimpering, panicked gasps, hands clenching spasmodically at her scalp. This is too much, she can't hold it all in her head, she's so godamned drunk. She's been twenty years old for barely an hour, but right now she feels about six, wanting someone else to tell her what to do, to take care of everything, to make this okay.

"Piper!" Polly sounds alarmed. She grabs her arms. " _Piper_ , you have to breathe."

"I need...I need coffee. Someone make me coffee..."

Grace and Jenna actually go rushing toward the kitchen, looking grateful for a task, but Polly blocks their path and shakes her head. "It's okay, Piper. I know someone we can call. Just sit down for a second." Piper sits, but not on the couch; just sinks onto the rug in the living room, wrapping her arms around her head. Above her, Polly raises her voice. "Everybody out. Party over."

Most of the guests look relieved to be dismissed. They head out in clumps, murmuring under their breath, swapping information on who Alex is. Haley, Jenna and Grace linger, patting Piper's back or squeezing her shoulder and telling her everything will be okay, trying to ask what happened and getting no response, but for some reason Polly won't say who the ride is until she ushers them out, too.

"Polly, I gotta go," Piper says in a feeble, hoarse voice.

"I know. I'm calling now." She dials the cordless phone and tucks it between her ear and shoulder, then immediately wanders into her bedroom to talk. Two minutes later she emerges. "He's coming."

"Who?"

Polly sighs, like this is opening an entirely new can of worms. "Professor Preston." She gives a deliberate, practiced pause. "William."

Professor William Preston is one of the most popular lecturers in the English department, young and witty and charismatic, known for his small scale seminars on Shakespeare's problem plays. His light coarse load only made him more sought after, and Polly and Piper had both snagged a spot this semester.

"He's only an adjunct professor," Polly says, as though she's explaining something, and it still takes Piper a moment to clue into what, exactly, is being confessed.

"Oh."

Polly's watching her. "Are you mad? I just wasn't sure if I should tell you. We're trying to keep it quiet."

"I don't care." Piper squeezes her eyes shut, splaying her palms flat on the carpet, trying to will herself into sobriety.

Polly seems to remember the matter at hand. She sits down beside Piper and puts an arm around her. "Hey...what happened to Alex?"

She doesn't even give Polly this, but isn't sure how to avoid it.  "Heroin. Overdose."

" _Fuck_." Polly sounds genuinely shocked. "Jesus.  Did you know she did drugs?"

"No," Piper clenches out in an empty whisper, covering her face with her hands.

"Didn't she sorta start in high school that time, though? Before you were dating?"

"That was just LSD."

Polly exhales slowly. "That's pretty bad, huh? When you can say _just_ LSD."

Piper makes a strangled, groaning sound, muffled into her palms.

"Sorry." Silence settles for a few minutes, then Polly moves off the couch, toward the window, and a second later announces, "He's outside."

Piper uncovers her face; her hands come away wet. Polly eyes her hesitantly. "Do you want to change clothes?"

"No, I want to leave."

"It's a two and a half hour drive, Piper. A few minutes won't make a different."

She sharks her head, stubborn. Drunk. "I wanna go."

"Okay. I'm gonna ride with."

They go downstairs. Professor Preston is standing outside his car, and it _is_ a little strange, seeing him in athletic shorts and a college T-sirt, unshaven, glasses instead of contacts, his dark hair mussed. Polly goes over and kisses him on the cheek, murmuring something. It only adds to the unreal feeling of what's happening.

"Hi, Piper." The professor nods, oddly formal. "I'm sorry about your friend."

Piper glances at Polly, not even sure how to navigate this situation. She just wants to leave.

Polly puts a hand on Piper's arm and guides her into the backseat, addressing Preston as she does. "Thanks for coming. It seriously is an emergency. I'm gonna ride with her, okay?"

He nods, lightly rubbing her arm before heading to the driver's side. "Of course."

Luckily, their professor seems to pick up on the mood pretty quickly, and he doesn't try to force casual conversation. Piper sits hunched in the backseat of his car, Polly beside her, absently patting her knee or squeezing her shoulder every few minutes.

After less than an hour, something in Piper's chest bends without warning, threatening to snap, and she curls in on herself even further, face crumpling. She presses her lips against her forearm, badly choking back sobs.

"Hey..." Polly's hand lands on her back. "You okay?"

Piper inhales a rapid staccato of breaths. "I don't wanna talk to you about her."

"Why not?"

"You hate her."

"Hey. That's not fair. She hates me, too." Polly pauses, her voice softening, "And I obviously don't want her to _die_."

The word is the final break, and Piper starts to cry, hard.

"Shit, shit, shit, Piper, hey...I didn't mean that like it's a possibility, okay? Pipe, I'm really sorry, seriously, she's not gonna die..."

"She might." The words sound like they've been wrenched from her chest. "She may have already, Diane had just got her there, I have no idea..."

"Do you need to make a call?' Professor Preston asks tentatively from the front seat. "I have my cell phone."

"Her mom doesn't have one." God, she hadn't thought this through at all, hadn't gotten a number for the hospital.  Fucking drunk, stupid girl.  Piper swipes her knuckles across her cheek, and they come away smeared with black. She suddenly feels incredibly silly in her party dress and heels. Like a little kid playing dress up. She doesn't want to be twenty. She wants to take everything about the last year or so back, start over, do it better.  Not end up here.

Like she's reading her mind, Polly says hesitantly, "You know this isn't your fault, right?"

"I told you. I don't want to talk about it with you."

"Well, you need to hear this, Pipe. It's not. No matter why she started doing drugs. You can't blame yourself."

"I know that," Piper snaps. "I don't care if it's my fault or not. I just care whether or not she's going to die." Polly opens her mouth, but Piper cuts her off, "And don't say she won't because even her mom said they didn't know if she'd be okay."

There's nothing Polly can say to that; she nods and goes quiet, leaving Piper to lean her forehead against the car window, watching the road rush by, taking her closer to Alex, Alex who might be dead, she really, really might.

Piper spends the last hour of the drive trying to prepare herself. Surely it's better to be prepared. But she keeps hitting a wall: she can imagine the hospital, can imagine being told, can even imagine Diane hugging her, sobbing, completely demolished. But she falters at what comes next, at the reality of Alex not existing. It's unfathomable, even though of course people die, especially people who have been rushed to the ER with poison in their veins and their lungs not working. But it's _Alex_. How the hell is the world supposed to rearrange itself to accommodate that loss?

How the hell is Piper?

She feels the moment the car turns off the familiar exit, and then Professor Preston is asking for directions. Piper's mouth is dry but she manages to whisper out street names and turns, mapping out the path to the hospital.  She usually takes this exit straight to Alex's apartment.

The moment is coming, and she can feel it slamming into her chest, the moment that could tear her life firmly in two: Before and After. The seams are already splitting, the hold precarious, but for now she's living in the in between. The hospital is Shrodinger's box, and Piper's scared to death to open it.

But it's three thirty in the morning and the whole town is sleeping, so they get to the hospital parking lot far too quickly.

"Do you want me to come in?" Polly asks.

"No."

"Okay, well..." She pulls a receipt and a pen from her purse and scribbles a number on the back of it. "Call me on William's cell, okay? Soon, Pipe. After you talk to her mom. I wanna know if she's okay."

Piper barely manages to nod. She isn't getting out of the car.

"Piper?"

Her eyes are closed, hands balled into fists at her side. Nothing is working. "I...can't...move."

There's a shuffling beside her, the sounds of opening and closing car doors, and then Polly's opening the door on Piper's side, reaching over and undoing her seatbelt, and physically tugging Piper out of the car. Piper lets herself be led, legs working on autopilot, and Polly keeps a grip on her arm until they reach the doors of the ER.

"You need me to come with you?"

"No." Now that she's standing, Piper can do it. And she doesn't want Polly there. She just wants to find Diane.

"Okay. But call me."

"Yeah."

Polly pulls her into a hug, and for half a second, Piper almost changes her mind, begs her to come. But then Polly lets go and the need passes.

Piper walks in alone.

 

* * *

 

Her stupid party heels click a rhythm on the tiled floor of the hospital. Why was she wearing goddamn heels to a party at her own fucking apartment?  Goddamn it.  

Diane isn't in the waiting room for the ER, so Piper walks in circles for ten minutes, not sure where she should be looking but too afraid to go to a desk and ask and find out something she doesn't want to know.

She finds her in a tiny, narrow waiting room with only two other people, a sleeping middle aged couple.  

"Piper..."  Diane stands and walks toward her.  Her hair is in wild waves around her face, her eyes red and swollen. She looks so unraveled, and it makes Piper feel little kid scared.  

Her hands are gripping the door frame.  "Is...is she...?"  The words pile up in her throat: dead, alive, okay.

"She's in the ICU," Diane tells Piper.  Her voice is low and rough, like a knife's been dragged across her throat.  "They got the drugs out of her system, that isn't the problem, it's some sort of...respiratory distress syndrome.  They got her on a respirator, trying to get her oxygen levels up..."  Diane's voice trails off, expression overwhelmed.  

"But she's going to be fine, right?" 

Diane forces a weak, fault line of a smile.  "They said she's got a real good chance."

Piper's eyes flood, because that isn't what she wanted, it isn't  _of course she's going to be just fine_.  A sob rips out of her, straight from the chest, and she shakes her head in apology.  She doesn't want to do this, she should be asking Diane if she needs anything, should be getting coffee and making sure she eats, she shouldn't be the one needing to be taken care of.  But when Piper opens her mouth to apologize, her voice shatters into pieces, and Diane reaches out and wraps her in a tight hug.

"She's gonna be okay, she's gonna be okay, she's gonna be okay..."  Diane murmurs, like a mantra, half soothing, half reassurance for herself.  

Diane smells like Alex's apartment and childhood sleepovers.  Piper presses her face into her shoulder and it takes awhile to stop crying.  Eventually, Piper draws back, and Diane smoothes the hair back from her forehead, the gesture so overwhelmingly maternal she nearly breaks down all over again.

"Can I see her?" 

"There aren't visiting hours until morning.  But they said if she wakes up they'll let me go in.  Come on..."  Diane puts an arm around Piper and they walk back to the waiting room.  "Let's sit."  They sit in chairs across the room from the sleeping couple.  

Piper's still got the receipt with their professor's phone number on it, but she doesn't want to call Polly.  She sits there next to Alex's mom, her fingers curled around the hem of her dress, wishing she could stop shaking.  

Diane breaks a lingering silence with, "I'm glad you're here, Pipe."  Guilt blooms dark and inky throughout Piper's stomach, and she can't look Diane in the eye.

 

* * *

 

Alex opens her eyes and everything is blurry.  She makes an instinctual grab for her glasses and doesn't find her nightstand.  

More details pierce her consciousness: there's an oxygen mask on her face.  Hospital gown.  ID bracelet.  More white than usual. She holds the bracelet close to her face: her name is on it.  Damn it.  She groans, embarrassment heating her entire body.  Damn it damn it  _damn it_. 

She's such a fucking idiot.  

The room is tiny, surrounded by windows glass, a doorway with no door opening up into a more general space.  She can't make out the details, but there are definitely a few bodies moving around, so Alex hits the call button on the plastic handles of the bed.

A nurse comes in; she's in her thirties with short brown hair and a nose ring and she doesn't give Alex one of those condescending, 'you're a junkie who's wasting my time' looks.  Alex likes her immediately.  Maybe she'll let her go home.

"Glad to have you back with us.  How you feeling?"  Alex goes to lift the mask, but the nurse expertly guides her hand away even as she checks the monitor.  "Don't move that just yet, just give me one of these."  She indicates a thumbs up, thumbs down, and a sort of middle ground,  _meh_ signal.  Alex firmly lifts her thumb.  "Excellent.  It's a little after five thirty am, you came in just after midnight...your oxygen was low which is why we've got you in the ICU.  Now, good news: your body doesn't seem to be going through any symptoms of withdrawal from our flushing the drug out of your system, so I'm guessing this is a somewhat new habit, and hopefully one you'll now be kicking."  Alex goes for the mask again, and again the nurse intercepts her.  "You'll still get to talk to our drug counselor as soon as you're well enough to move out of the unit, but right now why don't I go get your mom?"

"My mom?"  Alex blurts into the mask, the words muted and muffled by plastic.  

Oh no.

_Shit._

For the first time, last night comes screaming back to her.  

She'd been in the fucking apartment.  

Which means her mom was the one to find her.

Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh  _shit_.

Diane comes into the room, and one look at her mother's wild-eyed, disheveled,  _aged_ expression cues up the destruction in Alex's chest.

" _Alex_ _."_ The word comes out broken.  Diane's arms are around her, and Alex's can feel her shoulders heaving, back muscles contorting as she cries.  

Tears claw their way up Alex's throat and burn hot in her eyes.  This is the worst she has ever felt, she is the fucking scum of the earth, such a shit of a person.  She pushes her mask out of the way, her voice breathy and hoarse against Diane's neck,  "Mom, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, please, it's not a big deal, I'm sorry..."  It comes out so panicked, like if she can apologize enough, really fast, right now, she can counteract the last five hours of hell she's put her mom through.  

She wants to get past this part, where the terror is embedded fresh in her mom's features, wants to move on to Diane scowling and asking her how she could be so fucking stupid.  

But Diane just holds her, stroking her hair and shushing her apologies. Alex draws oxygen into her lungs and squeezes her eyes shut, so fucking furious at herself.  She doesn't want to picture it: her mom walking into her room, thinking she was asleep, realizing...what?  That she wasn't breathing?

Idiot idiot idiot.   

Finally, Diane pulls away to look at her, and the look on her tear streaked face is searing.  "Al. Baby.   _Jesus_ , kid."

Alex moves the mask down below her chin.  "Mom, I  _swear_...I'd only done it a couple times -"

"Ssshhh..."  Diane gently guides the mask back over her face.  "We can talk about that later.  You're gonna be okay, that's what matters." 

"I'm sorry."  Alex is giving her this begging look, eyes digging into Diane's face like she's waiting for her to do _something_ that shows she's okay, to smirk or roll her eyes or smile without it looking like it might collapse.   

"I know you are, baby."  Her fingers brush at Alex's cheeks; she hadn't realized she was crying.  Diane opens her mouth to say something else, but the nurse walks back in, smiling apologetically at them.

"How you feeling?"  Alex gives her another thumbs up, and she smiles.  "Excellent."  The nurse hangs something on Alex's IV, then glances over.  "By the way, your friend's pacing in circles outside the ICU.  It's technically closed for visitors, but we can let her for a few minutes if you want.  Since you gave everybody such a scare."

Alex's brow furrows in confusion.  What  _friend_?  One look at Diane, though, and she figures it out.  Eyes widening, Alex practically yanks the mask off, "You _called_ her?" 

" _Alex_."  Diane gives her a look, and for a second she's slightly closer to normal.  "C'mon, babe.  Of course I called her."

Panic weaves itself around Alex's spine, and she grits her teeth, pissed off and embarrassed.  Jesus Christ, Piper must think she's pathetic.  Like she needs drugs to function without her.  "Well, tell her I'm fine and she can go home."  Home to her goddamn apartment.  

"Mask," the nurse admonishes almost lazily.

"I am  _not_ sending that girl home until she sees you." 

"I don't want to see her."

Diane leans over and kisses Alex's forehead, her voice gentle as she says, "Tough shit."

The nurse walks away, and Alex waits until she's gone to pull the mask down and completely let go.  "Are you really taking her side?"

She's expecting a denial, or maybe an insistence that there aren't any sides.  But instead, Diane raises her eyebrows and says firmly, "Yes.  I am."  Off Alex's surprise, she explains, "Because Piper's side is the side that's spent all night scared to death you might die."  Her voice catches, and Alex's eyes fill up again.  She looks away, freshly ashamed at herself.  "Trust me.  She needs to see you.  And you're going to let her."

Diane lets that settle, and after a moment Alex says in a quiet, pained voice, "It's her birthday."  

There's just a little too much understanding in Diane's expression as she squeezes Alex's hand.  "I'm gonna go get her."

 

* * *

 

Alex runs her fingers through her hair as she waits; it feels limp and dirty.  No one seems to have brought her glasses.  She doesn't even want to think about what she looks like right now.

But it can't be much worse than Piper.

Her hair's a tangled mess, her eyes rimmed with black, and the fancy dress just makes the whole thing more jarring.  She walks into the room and the muscles in her face tighten as soon as she sees Alex; she hovers oddly at the foot of the bed, not coming closer, not looking away.  

Hooking the mask under her chin, Alex fixes her gaze a spot above Piper's head and tries for a sheepish, wry sort of smile.  "Happy birthday."  

Piper's body visibly jolts, and she lets out a harsh, crooked sound.  Her eyes are blazing.  " _Fuck_ _you_ , Alex."

" _Fuck_ me?!"

"Yes.   _Fuck_ _you_.  Jesus Christ.  What the fuck is wrong with you?  What the _fuck_.  You _fucking shit_." 

Alex narrows a glare at her.  "This is charming, Pipes.  You know what, just get the hell out."

" _Fuck you_.  What if you'd died?"  Her chest is heaving, the words soaked in tears and pure venom.  "I could have woken up on my goddamn birthday and found out you were  _dead_."  

"Oh, yeah," she spats.  "You got me, this is all about you.  I thought, hmmm if I'm really gonna push it, take a risk, better do it  _tonight_ , that way if I die at least I get to  _fuck up Piper's_ _birthday_." 

"Shut up.  Shut up shut up shut up."  Piper actually literally presses her hands to her ears, her face contorting.   _  
_

"Just go away.  Go back to your goddamn apartment with goddamn Polly.  I'm sorry my mom called you.  I don't know why the fuck you'd care." 

" _FUCK YOU_." 

"Fuck  _you!"_

The nurse, Diane at her heels, comes running back in, a smoldering glare on her face.  She's no longer on Alex's side.  "Do you two have any idea that you're in an  _intensive care unit?_ At six a.m.?  Cut the yelling, _right_ _now_."  

The warning isn't needed, though; Piper's crying too hard to talk.  She's doubled over at the waist, body wracked with the kind of sobbing that makes you think about how _primal_  crying is, the way it's just _noise_ and _anguish_.  Alex's body jerks forward on its own volition, moving to get out of the bed, but the mask and the IV stop her.  " _Mom_."  

Diane takes a step toward Piper, but before she gets there Piper turns away, running past her, out of the room, out of the unit.  Leaving, again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. One more coming for this one. Hope everyone's cool with events thus far: my thinking re: Alex is that she's much younger and much less experienced/established in the cartel by the time this particular self-destructive spiral hits, which is why she's less in control of what happens. *Also, the issue of what Diane knows at this point will be vaguely addressed next chapter, even though I'm eternally fuzzy/curious on that in canon*
> 
> Love to know what you guys think! The comments on this 'verse are so overwhelmingly nice and invested.


	3. Chapter 3

The sun is barely starting to tinge the sky with streaks of orange and pink as Piper stands shivering at the curb outside the hospital.  A car pulls up beside her and she ducks into the passenger seat.  Slumped over the wheel, Cal's clearly barely awake - it's a miracle he opened his eyes enough to drive here - but the slightest bit of life sparks on his face when he looks at Piper.  "Fuck.  You look like shit."

"Just drive."  Piper's voice is ragged and worn thin.  The muscles of her torso are actually aching, eyes nearly swollen shut from the most recent breakdown.  

Cal pulls out of the parking lot.  It takes a few minutes for him to even formulate a single question, "So Alex is okay?"

"Yeah."

He grunts out an affirmative.  They drive in silence.  The streets are empty.  

When Cal pulls into the driveway, Piper glances at him.  "Mom and Dad didn't see you?"

"Still asleep.  Didn't hear the phone."  She'd called the private line that used to be just hers, the one Cal had inherited when she moved away to school.  He puts the car in park, then seems to remember something.  "Oh, hey.  Happy birthday."  She doesn't answer.  "It is today, right?"

She grimaces.  "Yeah."  

He shuts up, seeming to realize the  _happy_ doesn't really apply.  They walk into the house, still dark and still and quiet, heading stealthily up the stairs.  

"Thanks for picking me up."

Cal mumbles something incoherent and walks straight back to his bedroom to sleep.  Piper goes into her bathroom, keeping her eyes averted from the mirror.  She peels off her dress, the dress she bought just for her party, and leaves it on the floor, but it may as well go straight in the trash: she'll never be able to wear it again.  It's stained with this night.  

She stays in the shower for nearly forty minutes, head tilted back, holding her closed eyes directly under the hot spray, then stumbles dazedly into her bedroom and falls into blissful, blank sleep.  

She's owed an entire night's worth, but still wakes up after just a few hours with the sort of instant, disoriented energy that comes from not being where you're supposed to.  It's a strange feeling to have _here_ , in the bedroom where she grew up, but that's what Piper gets for barely coming home for seven months.  

It's around ten in the morning, and she can hear other voices in the house now; Piper's really hoping Cal already briefed their parents on her unexpected visit.  Just the thought of interacting with them is taxing.

Almost everything that had been remotely active in her wardrobe for the past several years had been moved to the apartment, so Piper ends up pulling on a T-shirt from Eighth Grade Field Day, too small now, barely covering her stomach.  The neck's been cut out so it hangs off her shoulder; she vaguely remembers making Alex do it after seeing how much cooler it looked on hers. 

Piper has to force her expression into neutral before walking into the kitchen, and is relieved to see Cal already there, albeit still looking half asleep at the kitchen table, head propped on his elbow, headphones on, eating waffles without a fork.  Her mom is cooking bacon at the stove, and her dad's sitting beside Cal reading his Sunday paper.  And luckily, no one seems shocked to see her.

"Sweetheart!"  Her dad stands up to hug her.  "This is a great surprise to wake up to.  Happy birthday." 

"Hey, Daddy," she murmurs, already eyeing her mom, frowning anxiously from the kitchen.

"Piper, I wish we'd known you were coming...I mailed your birthday gift to Northampton, made  _sure_ it would get there today."

"It was kinda last minute, Mom."

"Yes, yes, Cal said...he claimed not to know _why_ Alex had to be rushed to the ER."  She arches an eyebrow.  "Was it alcohol poisoning?" 

" _No,_ "  Piper retorts, eyes flashing indignantly, pissed that she'd assumed that, even more pissed that the truth is actually worse.  "She just went into some sort of respiratory distress."  She's fairly confident her mom won't immediately connect that to an overdose.  Then, stressing the seriousness, Piper adds,  "They have her in the ICU." 

"We'll send flowers," Piper's mom says firmly, as though that settles it, problem solved.  She imagines Alex receiving a bouquet from her mother.  She imagines Alex destroying it, petal by petal.   

"But she's alright?"  Her dad asks idly, back in his seat, already lifting his paper.

"Well.  Stable."

Her mother's already moved on.  "I just hate that now we have nothing for you on your actual birthday."

"It's fine, Mom, I don't care about presents."

"Well.  We'll take you out to dinner tonight.  You pick the place, we'll have a nice little celebration, and then Dad can drive you back to school."  

Sitting down at the kitchen table beside her brother, Piper glances up sharply.  "What?"

"Cal said you didn't bring your car...for some reason."

"I...Polly drove me, I was too freaked out to drive, but - "

"I don't understand why Alex's mother would call  _you_ in the middle of the night, two and a half hours away, and have you come all this way in a panic..."

Appalled, and more surprised then she should be, Piper blinks at her.  "Mom.  She almost  _died_.  They had her on a ventilator."  

"We're just glad she's okay, honey," Bill puts in distractedly from behind his paper, reaching out to pat her knee.

"I'm not going back to school tonight."

At that, the newspaper comes down, and her parents exchange a glance.  "You have classes tomorrow."

"Alex is in the  _hospital_."

"And you'll have all day today to visit with her," Carol says firmly, like the discussion is closed.

Her dad makes his placating face, playing the good cop.  "Well.  One day won't be the end of the world...I'll drive you back tomorrow after work, how bout that?"

"I'm not leaving until I know Alex is okay."  Never mind that Alex is going to be fine, and doesn't even want her around anyway.  That seems beside the point right now.  Piper feels tightly wound, a pressure building everywhere - fists, throat, guts.   

" _Piper._ "  She hates when her mom says her name like that, like she's being ridiculous and unreasonable.  Carol sets a plate of breakfast in front of her.  "Now honestly.  You just said she was stable.  We realize Alex is an old friend, but she's no reason for you to neglect your schoolwork indefinitely."  

Piper wants to grab her mom by the shoulders and shake her, ask why she isn't  _getting this_.  How can she not _see_ it?  Piper's just had the worst night of her life; she feels beaten to a pulp by the past ten hours, ripped wide open, and her mother is serving her breakfast and talking about fucking college classes.  

The fight is rising in her throat, and for a second Piper stops thinking and just lets it out.  "Actually, she's not just  _an old friend_.  She's my girlfriend, so it would actually be pretty shitty of me to just take off."

It's one of those sitcom moments, where you expect everyone to freeze in mid-movement, or splutter their coffee, or drop a plate.  Instead, everyone just stares.  Cal takes off his headphones, and mutters a quiet, almost awed, " _Whoa_."

Eventually, Carol says stiffly, "Piper.  That's not funny."

"I know it's not.  We started dating junior year of high school.  You didn't even notice.  And the world hasn't imploded, or twirled right the fuck off its axis, or whatever else."

" _Language_ ," Carol hisses shrilly, seemingly because she can't think of where else to begin.

Cal, on the other hand, can.  "Wait.  You've been dating her this whole time?   _Lucky_."

" _Calvin_!"

" _What_ , Mom, she's hot."  

Her dad hasn't said anything.  He's just staring, mouth half open, like his brain is having to reboot.

Piper pushes her plate away and stands up, feeling oddly, miraculously calm.  A thrill curls its way up her spine as it occurs to her, for the first time, how little their reaction actually matters.  Soon - not today, or tomorrow, but eventually - she will be back at school, and her parents will feel as far away as they have for the last year and a half of college.  

Sure, they always have the power to cut her off, withdraw her tuition, but that clearly won't happen.  School matters too much to them.  Forcing her out would only turn her into more of a disappointment to them.

She grabs a set of keys off the counter.  "Cal, can I borrow your car?"

He nods even as their mom says, borderline hysterical, "Piper, sit _down_."

It's as though last night had opened up new pockets of strength inside her.  Like that's how she survived it, and now that's the only explanation for how easy it is for Piper to shrug apologetically and not stop walking.  "I gotta get back to the hospital."

" _Piper_!"  

She closes the door behind her, another thrill flaring in her chest.  What are they going to do?   _Ground_ her?

Jesus, this feels good.

There is an irony here, and she doesn't let herself think it until she's halfway to the hospital in Cal's car.   At the surface, it felt like telling the truth: her parents now know the most important thing about her life for the past three years.  

And yet she's still, technically, lying.  Because Alex isn't her girlfriend anymore.

Maybe Piper's just not built for complete honesty.  Probably a family trait.

 

* * *

 

" _Mom_.  Seriously.  Can't we just leave?  Sign out against medical advice, or whatever?"

"No, we can't.  You get yourself rushed to the ER in the middle of the night, you do whatever the hell _medical advice_ tells you to do."

Alex shuts up.  They're moving her out of the ICU, but still insisting she stay at least another night to monitor her lungs and watch for infection.  She can't stop thinking about how much this must be costing...am ambulance ride, plus a night of ICU, plus another?  Jesus.  She has to figure out a way to make sure she pays for it. 

They're supposed to be coming to transfer her, because apparently she can't walk like a normal person.  She gives a couple perfunctory protests, but the truth is, a bone deep, overwhelming exhaustion had settled over her body about an hour ago.  Or maybe that's just the affect of the fear that's been lining her insides ever since Piper ran out, crying like that.

The nurse from this morning, the pretty one, brings a wheelchair over and gives Alex a dry look.  "Good news...you'll have a room to yourself upstairs.  But the walls are still thin, so if your girlfriend does find her way back, you'll still wanna keep the volume turned down on the dyke drama."

Diane jerks her head up, eyes flaring dangerously.  "Uh, excuse the fuck out of you, lady.  It was a long, emotional night, and I don't see what my daughter being  _gay_ has anything to do with that, so you can just park the offensive judgey bullshit at the front desk."

Alex screws up her face, fumbling for a way to cut her mom off subtly, because she's about eighty percent sure the nurse is actually - 

"My partner just had a baby last month.  Our second, actually,"  The nurse informs Diane calmly.  "Which means I'm alternating night shifts here, or night shifts at home, because _she_ shouldn't have to get up with the screaming infant when I've been gone all day, right?  I won't complain, I love it to bits, but it does make nights here feel long and exhausting.  It makes me slightly less than patient with screaming college kids."  She smirks.  "No matter what their sexuality."

Alex isn't used to seeing her mom speechless.  She chokes back a laugh as Diane nods with as much dignity as she can muster, then slides a glance at Alex before saying, "I'm sure they'll restrain themselves next time."

When Diane leaves to speak to the primary ICU doctor, the nurse helps Alex into her wheelchair and grins.  "Let me guess...your mom's president of PFLAG?" 

Alex smirks.  "She's not really the club and organization type." 

"Oh, well."  She pauses, then adds lightly,  "She definitely loves you."  There's something in her tone that makes Alex's smirk fade instantly.   The nurse lifts an eyebrow and meets her eyes dead on.  "Maybe don't scare her like that again, yeah?  No parent should have to worry about losing their kid."

Alex's eyes skirt away, guilt plummeting her all over again.  She doesn't want to talk about this now, not here with this stranger.  She feels vaguely like an insolent child, staring at the ground, refusing to answer.  

Finally, the nurse just goes back behind the wheelchair, pushing her out of the ICU.  "The drug counselor will be by this afternoon."

 

* * *

 

Piper walks straight to the ICU this time, no hesitation, still riding the waves of her own defiance.  She isn't sure what she's planning to do when she sees Alex; there are a lot of desires getting tangled up in her head.  She wants to hug Alex, and she wants to hit her.  She wants to brag about what she'd just done at home, and she wants to make it clear just how much she'd meant this mornings _Fuck_ _you'_ s.  She isn't sure which end she'll fall on when she actually sees Alex, but it doesn't matter: it just seems ridiculous not to be here, in the hospital,  _with her_ , when she is every reason Piper is home.

But Alex isn't in the ICU, and even though there's a nurse right there to tell Piper her new room number, it's enough to drain her of momentum.  Her steps are less sure when she approaches the room and pushes in the half open door.

Alex looks surprised to see her.  Diane looks relieved.  Piper can't look at Alex for longer than a few seconds; she still hates this, hates seeing Alex this way, minus her glasses and eyeliner and strength.  Even this morning, even with all her fury, she'd looked young and small in the hospital gown.  Her face is all pale skin and shadows, and it's not hard to look at her and remember she could have died.  It gives Piper a stomachache.  

"Hey, Pipe."  Diane smiles gently, and it's a relief to look at her, at least.  Some of the light is back in her eyes, and she stands up, beckoning Piper into the room even as she walks toward her, toward the door.  "I'm gonna grab something from the cafeteria.  Either of you hungry?"

Piper shakes her head wordlessly, and presumably Alex does, too, because Piper doesn't hear her answer.  She still isn't looking.  Diane pats her on the shoulder when she walks past.

"What are you  _wearing_?" 

Seriously.  That's the first thing Alex says.  

Piper scowls.  "I didn't exactly pack for this trip."

"Then, go.  I told you.  Crisis averted, you never had to come in the first place, I don't know why you're still here."

The calm indifference in Alex's voice is what's killing Piper.  Damn her.  Damn her and this whole act.  "You're so full of shit, Al," Piper spats, crossing her arms.  "Lying in your fucking hospital bed like you can't  _possibly fathom_ why I'm here.  That's bullshit."

Alex's face goes cold.  "I haven't heard from you in seven months,  _Pipes_."

"You didn't call me either."

"No.  But I went by your house.  Apparently you didn't come home all summer."

At that, Piper flinches.  Coward's move, definitely.   _You fucking coward_.  

"I told my parents," she blurts out, apropos of nothing.  Alex gives her a blank look.  "They wanted me to go back to school today, kept saying I couldn't miss classes just for an 'old friend', so I told them.  I said you were my girlfriend."

Alex's expression doesn't change.  "Well, that was really fucking stupid.  Seeing as it's not even true."

She says it like she's stating a fact, and she is.  There's no reason in the world it should hurt, but it does.

"I mean.  I told them we started dating in high school."  Almost churlishly, Piper adds, " _That's_ still true."

"Great."  Her voice is flat, devoid of anything.  "That's really cool of you, Pipes.  Not that it makes any difference  _now_."  She looks away, shaking her head in disbelief.  "Is that why you came back?  To score points for something that doesn't even fucking matter anymore?"  

"I came back because you scared the shit out of me, Alex.  You could have  _died_.  You're using  _heroin_ now?  Was that something else you lied to me about for a year?"  

Piper knows it wasn't.  Selfishly, she wishes it was.

But Alex's head jerks up at that.  "I hadn't  _touched_ the stuff last time we talked, Piper.  That wasn't part of it."

Piper has suspected that, assumed it, even, but she still doesn't want to hear it.  "So, what?"  Her voice is shaking.  "Am I supposed to feel guilty?  Like this is my fault?"  

"I did  _not_ say that," Alex says firmly, like it's really important to make that clear.  "I'm just telling you the facts so you don't get to use this to prove yourself right.  You don't get an  _I told you so_."  

Piper looks away.  "So are you going to stop?" 

"Using?   _Obviously_."  Then, sounding oddly childish, Alex mutters, "I hadn't done it much anyway."  

"And the cartel?"

"No.  I told you, it has nothing to do with it.  I'm not quitting." 

Her jaw tightens.  "Then you're an idiot." 

"Fuck you.  You don't get an opinion anymore."

Piper presses the heels of her hands against her eyes, suddenly feeling tearful again.  Her voice is thick and wet when she says softly, "I fucking hate you for this, Alex."

"Fine.   _Hate_ me."  Piper can't see her face, but Alex sounds so, so angry.  "Soon you'll be back in fucking Northampton, hating me from a distance, so what the fuck do I care?"  

She's going to scream.  If she stays here another second she's going to open her mouth and scream until her throat rips open.  Piper turns toward the door and Alex lets out a mean laugh.

"Of course, yeah.  Leave.  Like always." 

Piper whirls around, lightheaded with anger and a sudden rush of adrenaline.  "Fuck that.  You don't get to tell me to go, keep asking why the hell I'm here, and then act like it's my fault for leaving. I know you think I'm a coward.  I know you're usually right about that.  But you're no better.  You're the one who lied to me for a  _year_ because you were too scared to tell me what you were doing.  And OD'ing on heroin isn't exactly _brave,_ Al.  You almost died. That's the ultimate kind of  _leaving_.  So, yeah, fuck you.  If you want me to stay, _say it_."  She lets out a high, breathless laugh.  "Say it, you _fucking_ _coward..._ and I won't go anywhere."

Alex's hands are clenched in fists around the sheets of the hospital bed.  She isn't looking at Piper, isn't looking at anything, really; Piper can practically see her eyes withdrawing.  

She doesn't say anything.

Piper walks out.

 

* * *

 

 

Diane's leaning against the wall down the hall, sipping coffee.  She looks surprised to see Piper.  "Done already?"

"I..."  Piper draws a deep, unsteady breath, then shakes her head, angrily.  She looks up at Diane, who'd been right there beside her in that waiting room, wishing away the worst case scenario.  She blurts out, "Aren't you mad at her?"

Her eyes go soft around the edges.  "Yeah.  I guess I am.  But I'm pretty mad at myself, too."  

Piper leans against the wall beside her, feeling weak in her whole body.  "So am I." 

"Aw, honey..."  Diane's hand comes to rest on the top of her head.  "Piper.  I...shit.  Listen..."  She pauses, eyebrows knitting together, eyes pulling back like Alex's do when she's turning something over in her head.  "Did Al ever tell you why she changed schools?  Back when you two first met?"

The question, seemingly out of nowhere, confuses her.  "Um....you guys moved, right?  Just across town, from a different district."

"Mmm-hmmm.  One crap apartment to another.  We'd gotten evicted.  I wanna say it was...the  _third_ time that happened since Alex was born, maybe.  Second time she had to change schools.  She never had any reason to mind.  I worried about her, y'know, never makin' friends.  Especially with me working so much...she was a lonely kid."  Diane tilts her head and smiles at Piper in a way she probably doesn't deserve.  "But then you two met, and she wasn't anymore.  I was so fucking grateful, Pipe.  I'd never been able to fix that for her, but you did.  

"There was one time, I think you kids had just started fifth grade, and I was a month or two behind on rent.  Was worried we'd have to move again, so I told Alex about it, just to kinda prepare her for the possibility.  She freaked out.  I think it was the first time she ever got  _mad_ at me.  Like, seriously fuckin mad.  I had to swear we'd find a new place in the same school district before she let up.  Never mind that middle school was a year away.  

"Anyway.  We kept the apartment, thank God.  But I think that's when I really knew, about you two.  I'd always had some best friend or another, going through school...they'd change every few years, maybe.  You know how it is.  Well."  She grins a little.  "Actually, I guess you don't.  Cause my whole point is you two were different.  Just watching you together, it was obvious...even when you were still just kids.  That was such a gift, Pipe.  Always knowing she had you."

Always.

_Leave.  Like always._

Piper thinks of walking away from Alex that day at the bleachers.  Driving away to college.  Pulling out of her grip and retreating into the dorm.  

"I'm sorry."  Her voice comes out so small.

"Baby,  _no_ , I don't mean for you to be sorry.   _I'm_ sorry."

Piper chances a glance at her.  "Why?"

"I think I took that for granted.  You being there.  And it's not your job, babe.  It's mine.  And I know I'm not always good at it."

Piper thinks about Diane and her three different jobs, all those nights they had the apartment to themselves because she'd gone from one shift to another, just working to make sure they didn't get evicted.  She thinks of her own mother, home all the time, a fixture of the house, and how it's still never felt like they can have a single real conversation.  There's something to that, something reassuring to say, and Piper wants to, but she can't get to the words right now.

Diane continues talking, her eyes a little further away, less focused on Piper.  "Especially this past year...I know there's something.  She bought a car, she gives me rent like it's nothing.  She's doesn't come home for days.   And you two, you were over so... _fast_.  So I know there's something.  But I don't..."  She shakes her head.  "I don't want to take anything away from her.  I want her to have more in life than I do, but I can't help her get it.  Never could.  But now..."  Diane casts a glances down the corridor of the hospital, eyes on the door, voice snagging.  "Maybe I could have stopped this."

Piper doesn't know what to say.  Diane's trying to tell her she didn't do anything wrong, but she still feels awful.  Silence grips them for a long, loaded moment, and then Diane exhales sharply and lets out a tired laugh.  "Sorry, Pipe.  Didn't mean to unload on you." 

"No, God, it's fine."  She pauses, then, "I don't remember if I said this last night, but...thank you for calling me.  I know Alex isn't happy about it."

"Oh, don't listen to her.  She's feeling guilty, and embarrassed, but she knows there's no fucking way I wasn't going to call you."  Diane makes a sympathetic face.  "Why don't we both go back in and sit with her for awhile?"

"It's okay.  You go ahead.  She doesn't want me to."  

 

* * *

 

 

Alex is crying, and she's been crying for a long time, and she really needs it to stop.

She's curled on her side on the hospital bed, pressing her face into the stiff pillowcase, and it's the only kind of crying she knows how to do: quiet and angry and choked.  Like even though there are  _tears_ and  _noise_ , most of it is still happening on the inside.

The door clicks open and her mom comes in, so Alex stupidly wipes her face on the pillowcase and sits up like that's all it's going to take.  Like she isn't still fucking crying.  But she's pretty sure if she gets hugged right now she'll completely disintegrate.

"Babe..."  Diane comes to sit in the chair as close to the bed as it will go, but she knows her daughter well enough to see the way she stiffens and shrinks back slightly.  So she settles for squeezing Alex's hand.  "What happened?" 

She closes her eyes, exhaling a stuttering gasp.  "I'm just... _mad_."

"At Piper?"

At herself.  For wanting Piper to stay.  For not being able to ask her to.  

"No.  I don't know."  She clenches her teeth, choking back a dry, harsh sob.  "I'm sorry."  

"Oh, Alex."  Soothingly, Diane tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.  She looks so sad for her, and helpless. Alex hates that.  

She squeezes her eyes shut, forcing herself to pull it together.  "The fucking drug counselor is supposed to be here..."

"Good."

"Mom, I don't need that."

" _Alex_."  It's maybe the only time Alex can ever remember wanting to describe her mom's voice as _harsh_.It makes it impossible to avoid her eyes.  When she continues, her voice is tight. "I  _need_ you to look at me, and  _promise_ this isn't going to happen again."  

Again, it hits her: she is a horrible, selfish, shit of a person.  And, yes, a  _fucking coward_.

"It won't," Alex promises.  She knows her mom is counting on how well she knows her, that she can gauge honesty in her eyes, but Alex still does her best to pour her sincerity into each syllable.  "I won't do that to you again."

Diane's quiet for a moment, holding her gaze, then she nods shortly and leans forward, kissing Alex on the forehead.  "You better not."

 

* * *

 

Piper's parents are waiting when she gets home, side by side at the kitchen table, like they've been posed there for the past few hours.  

She feels drained and out of it from her visit to the hospital, and it's hard to grab onto the earlier _I give no fucks_ attitude.  She still gives none, she just isn't feeling up for the fight.

" _What_?," she snaps before they even say a word, all Angry Teenage Attitude.  Never mind that she's not a teenager anymore.  Like last night was the worst possible way to shove her into adulthood.

"We just want to talk to you."  Her dad's voice is calm.  Her mom's eyes are red.

She sighs, and for a second considers taking her father up on his offer to drive her back to school now, tonight, just to get out of his house.  But she knows she isn't going anywhere, not yet.  Even if Alex doesn't want her around.

Reluctantly, she sits across from them at the table.  "I don't care what you have to say about it."

"First of all," Bill says smoothly.  "We called your grandmother, and told her you're home for your birthday.  We all want to take you out for dinner tonight."

He seems to expect an argument on that, but Piper just says, "Fine."   It's not like she'll be missed at the hospital.

"Good.  Now..."  He and her mother look at each other.  "You can't blame us for being a little shocked."

"Okay."

"She slept over, Piper," her mother says tightly.  "That's inappropriate, and it feels...willfully dishonest of you."

Piper barely restrains an eyeroll.  "I  _was_ willfully dishonest.  But not so we could have sleepovers." She must be feeling bold again, because she adds, "I had sleepovers at Jesse Campbell's house in high school, too, I just had to tell you I was somewhere else."

Her dad winces, and her mothers gasps out, "Piper, for Heaven's sake..."  

She glares at them.  "I just know how you always treated her.  Like she was  _beneath_  us.  Even when we were just friends."  

"We were always perfectly nice to Alex," Bill counters.

"No, you talked down to her - "

"Adults often do that with ten year olds, sweetie," Carol says coolly.  

"It was more than that," Piper mutters, then regrets it.  There's no point in arguing.  She should just walk away.

"Your mother and I are just...surprised, and disappointed, that you felt the need to lie about it."

Piper laughs.  Not ironically, not sarcastically:  completely genuine.  Like the Chapman family aren't experts at lying.  

"And if you are a... _lesbian_."  Her mother says the word sounds like it tastes bad, and Piper doesn't bother correcting her.  She's pretty sure the concept of  _bisexual_  would make her mom's head explode.  "That's fine, that's something we'll deal with.  But Alex Vause..."  She hesitates, glancing at Bill.

"We don't know that you should be tying yourself down to someone..."  He clears his throat, tentative about choosing the words.  "...like that.  Someone's who's just, ah...staying  _here_."

Piper shakes her head slightly, not looking at either of them.  She can see it a little clearer now, what Alex was always worried about.  Not being good enough, not fitting into her life.  

But Alex doesn't know Piper's new policy.  She doesn't know how little Piper cares.

"Well."  Piper smiles.  "That's your opinion, I guess."

"Piper, Lisa says she was brought into the hospital for a  _drug overdose_."

Lisa is one of her mother's book club friends.  Lisa's husband is a doctor at the hospital.  Piper bristles.  "You should tell _Lisa_ it's illegal for her to give out that information, so that's not great choices _your_ friends are making either."  She pushes her chair back and heads out.  "Let me know when we're leaving for dinner."

 

* * *

 

The birthday dinner is tense, but it's the usual sort of tense.  Her father has told her _not_  to say anything to her grandmother, which means everyone is playing the Everything Is Fine game, a finely honed skill for the Chapman family.  

It's almost too bad, because when her grandmother hugs her and whispers, "Happy birthday, sweetheart.  How's Alex?  Heard she gave you quite the scare," Piper nearly starts crying.  She suddenly wants to be comforted.

But she keeps her mouth shut, and when her mother shoots her significant look and tells her to participate in her own birthday dinner, her grandmother pats her hand and admonishes, "Oh, leave her be, Carol.  She's tired.  Had a rough day." 

When they get home, she doesn't give her mom or dad a chance to summon her for another talk, just heads to her room.  Cal glances back over his shoulder, brows knit in concern.  "You okay, dude?  You're looking all tense. Can't imagine why."  He lifts two fingers to his lips, miming a joint, and drops his voice to a stage whisper.  "Want to smoke up?"

"No," she says immediately.  No way.  Weed smells and tastes like Alex, the summer after high school, on the roof of the apartment or pulled off some random road,  joint propped between her grinning lips, her tauntingly offering it to Piper.  "Thanks.  I might just crash.  I only got a couple hours sleep."

"Suit yourself.  Will you still be here after school tomorrow?"  She looks at him blankly, forgetting for a second that, oh yeah, tomorrow is Monday.  He has school and so does she.  

"Oh.  Yeah.  I think so."

"Cool."  He stops outside his room but doesn't go in.  When Piper's halfway down the hall, his voice stops her.  "Hey, Pipes?"

"Yeah."

"I...know it's none of my business.  But last summer, Alex came by looking for you."  Her stomach swoops.   _But I went by your house_.  "She...didn't even know you were doing summer school.  Or that you had an apartment."  When Piper doesn't say anything, he pushes, "It just didn't really seem like you were dating."

"We broke up," she admits softly.  "Last spring break.  Don't tell Mom and Dad, okay?  I don't want to give them the satisfaction yet." 

"Sure, no problem."  He hesitates.  "Are you getting back together?  Is that why you're still here?"

"I don't know."  She doesn't.  She feels herself flushing; maybe that's what she's been expecting.  Maybe she thought this was it, the push they needed: that she would cry and Alex would cry and they would hug and swear never to be apart again, that _of course_ Alex would quit the drug ring after something like this, and everything would just be _okay_ again.  "I don't know if we're getting back to anything, really."

"Oh.  Sorry.  You should, though.  She _is_ really hot." 

"I know she is, Cal."

"Like, really."

"I _know_."

"Okay.  Just sayin'." 

 

* * *

 

Piper locks her door and stretches out on the bed.  Her walkman and CD player and almost all of her tapes are back in the apartment, but she doubts she could listen to music right now anyway.  That's been rough for months, actually; Alex is too wrapped up in all of it.

She realizes she owes Polly a call; she'd finally remembered to call her on Professor's Preston's cell phone last night, an hour and a half after getting to the hospital, before they saw Alex.  But she'd still been half out of her head with fear, and Polly probably deserves a more coherent conversation.  

"Hello?"

"Hey."

" _Piper_.  Jesus, finally.  Why aren't you back here?  Is Alex okay?"

"Yeah, she's fine.  Out of intensive care."  

"Well.  Thank God, right?  That's good."

"Yeah."

"So when are you coming back?"

"I don't know."  

"Okay...well.  How are you guys...getting along?"

"I don't know.  Well.  I do.  We just keep fighting.  She doesn't want me here.  Or...she wishes she didn't.  I don't know.  Either way I can't be in the room for more than a few seconds without either cursing or crying."

"Oh."  There's a long pause, and Polly says nothing else.

"What?"

"Nothing.  I mean, I'm not sure what to say.  That's more than you've ever willingly shared about you and Alex.  And I'm still missing a lot of break-up related context."

"I know.  Sorry.  And...thanks for everything, last night.  I was so fucked up I don't even really remember what I said to you, but.  Thanks for getting me there."

"Of course, Pipe.  I knew you needed to go."

"Thanks."

They're quiet again, then Polly breaks the silence, her voice tentative,  "So are you okay?" 

"....no."  It comes out so quiet.  "Not really."  She groans softly.  "I think this set me back months and months from  _okay_."

"Ha.  Well..."

"What?"

"Just...it's not like you've been _great_ anyway."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, you say you're fine.  You say it and say it and say it, you're the  _worst_ about that.  But you're not really.  I did know you for most of a year when you were with Alex.  Even if I didn't see her around her much.  You were different."

"Yeah.  I know."

"I mean, it's okay.  It makes sense.  You'd been together for, what, two and a half years?  Or ten, I guess, depending on how you look at it."

"Ten.  Definitely ten."

"Right.  You kinda lost your best friend _and_ girlfriend.  It makes sense you'd be off for awhile."

"Yeah."

"Shit, sorry, are you crying?"

"Yeah, but less than usual.  So it's fine." 

"Sorry."

"Really.  It's okay."

"Okay.  But, seriously, when will you be back, do you think?  William said not to worry about his class tomorrow, but you have others."

"Jesus, that's so weird, Pol."

"I know.  That, uh...wasn't how I pictured telling you."

"I do want to hear about it.  At some point."

"I'll tell you the whole thing when you get back.  It's a good story, trust me."

"Oh, I believe you."

"So.  You'll come back to hear it...when?"

"Right.  I really don't know...I know that sounds stupid.  I just...I feel like it's not over.  Alex is fine, she's gonna be okay, and I really don't think she'll do this again - "

" _Seriously_?"  Polly's voice is all skepticism.

"Yeah, seriously.  You don't know how she is with her mom...Diane was so scared, I bet one look at her cured Alex of drugs forever.  She hates to do anything to upset her."

"Oh."

"So I don't know.  I don't know what I'm waiting for."  Piper goes quiet, and she's grateful Polly doesn't fill the silence with some analysis, even though she almost definitely has an opinion.  "It's just.  Like you said. She was my  _best friend_.  Since fucking fourth grade.  And she almost died and we wouldn't have talked for  _so_ long.  It just...seems wrong.  And  _fucked_."

"That makes sense."  

"I should just say that her, right?  But I can't, because I get too pissed off when I see her.  Maybe that's what I'm waiting for.  To stop being mad at her for almost dying."  

"It's okay that you're mad, though."

"I know."  

"Oh, also.  Happy birthday.  Again."

" _God_.  Worst one ever."

"I'm sure.  I had such high hopes for that party, too."

"Have people been...?"

"Calling all fucking day?  Yeah.  I told Grace and Jenna and Haley what was going on, sorry.  With everyone else I just said there was an emergency with Alex - most of them know who she is - but that she's gonna be okay and so are you."

"Thanks, Pol.  Really.  For everything."

"I'm pretty proud of myself.  Who knew I'd be good in a crisis?"

"You and your elderly boyfriend."

"Oh, please, you know he's dead sexy."

"Kind of, yes."

"Trust me.  Way more than _kind of_."

" _Weird_."  There's a pause, and then Piper adds, "I'm half falling asleep." 

"Okay.  Go sleep.  But call me tomorrow?  Keep me updated...oh, wait, are you gonna need me to come get you?"

"No, that's okay.  Dad'll take me."

"Okay.  Let me know if you change your mind for some reason.  Did they care that you were too drunk to drive?"

"Fuck, I didn't tell them _that_.  I just said I was too upset."

"Also probably true."

"Yeah."

"Anyway.  Night, Pipe."

"Night, Pol.  Thanks again.  So much."

"Always.  Bye."

Piper hangs up, feeling better for the first time all day.  It was good to say all that out loud; she isn't sure if Polly would have always been like this and Piper just never gave her the chance for serious talk, or if Alex nearly dying just made it harder to project a negative attitude toward her, but either way it helped.  

Even though it's not even ten yet, she falls asleep quickly, that light, unburdened feeling from the phone call easing her into it.

But she jerks awake just after midnight, lung filled with panic instead of air, her heart going too fast.  Piper doesn't remember dreaming anything, exactly, but it takes her a few wild seconds to remember that Alex is fine, Alex is alive, everything is okay.  

Anxiety keeps gnawing at her stomach, though, and her head is buzzing with adrenaline, so there's no way she's falling back to sleep.  She turns on the lamp at her bedside table, really looking around at her room for the first time this visit.  She's been here for exactly two nights since last year's spring break: she'd come back to pack everything she hadn't taken to the dorms but wanted in the apartment, and to let her mom take her shopping for the apartment, and then gone back.  She'd kept her car parked in the garage and she'd barely left the house besides that shopping trip.  She'd made sure she wouldn't see Alex.

 _Fucking coward_.

But Alex is all over her room.  It's crowded with memories - of sleepovers and, then, "sleepovers" - but it isn't just that.  

She walks over to her closet and kneels on the floor, pulling out the stack of boxes she keeps stuffed with papers, nothing worth moving, but nothing she can bring herself to throw away.   

There are dozens and dozens of pieces of notebook paper in there, covered in creases from being folded up and passed as notes - Alex had never done anything fancy, just tiny squares with PIPES scrawled on the front.  Some of the pages are only folded once, to fit into the box: those have two sets of handwriting, obviously from classes they had together, just slid back and forth across desks.  She can tell some of those are from fourth or fifth grade: the writing is bigger, and there's a lot of anti-Jessica Wedge sentiment. There's a three page letter, front and back, Alex wrote her while she was at camp, the summer after sixth grade, and Piper feels herself smiling as one of those memories she never thinks about shoots to the surface: sending Alex letters and postcards every day, getting so stupid excited at mail call that everyone thought it was from her boyfriend and tried to tease her until she said, "No, it's just my best friend.  She's so funny, listen to this part..."

She spends half an hour on the floor, reading through notes, completely absorbed in these past versions of her and Alex, in the things they used to talk about, in how easy it had always been between them.  When her eyes start to hurt from trying to decipher their handwriting, she goes to her book shelf.  It's mostly cleared out now, but there's still a stack of yearbooks in the bottom corner.

She grabs one of the slim middle school ones at random: seventh grade.  She'd followed preteen protocol, left the entire front flap free for her best friend to write a heartfelt, sentimental recap of the year and an ode to their friendship.   

Instead, Alex had written:

_DEAR PIPES,_

_I DON'T UNDERSTAND YEARBOOKS. IT'S SUMMER VACATION; YOU AREN'T GOING OFF TO WAR.  I'M ACTUALLY SLEEPING AT YOUR HOUSE TONIGHT.  CAN'T WE JUST TALK THEN?_

_LOVE,_

_ALEX_

Alex had never bought a yearbook, so Piper had never been able to show her how it was done.  She'd always huffed in exaggerated frustration, asked Alex why she couldn't do anything  _normal_ , but now she likes this.  She likes that Alex was refusing to preserve anything, to mark it as something that would need to be remembered.  Like they were never meant to be something of the _past_.

She moves forward, grabbing junior year of high school.  The first year they'd been together.  That one Alex had signed - sort of.  In the corner of the thick front cover, she'd carefully written out  _Just Like Heaven_ lyrics.  

 _Spinning on that dizzy edge / I kissed her face and kissed her head_ / _And dreamed of all the different ways I had to make her glow / "Why are you so far away?" she said /  "Why won't you ever know that I'm in love with you / That I'm in love with you.  / You, soft and only / You, lost and lonely / You, strange as angels / dancing in the deepest oceans / twisting in the water / You're just like a dream_

Then, just her initials,  **AV** , and a heart.  

Piper traces the lyrics absently with her fingers, reading them through twice.  That was the first Cure song she'd fallen in love with, sometime in middle school when the music Alex always played really started to matter.  To Piper, the song had always sounded like _Alex_ , and Alex's bedroom, and Alex's walkman headphones between them on the pillow.  It wasn't until that year, junior year, the year that changed everything, that she'd realized it also sounded the way it felt to be in love.

She grabs the last yearbook, senior year.  More Cure lyrics, the same spot, signed off with Alex's initials, another heart.  This time the song is _To Wish Impossible Things_.  

_Remember how it used to be / when the stars would fill the sky / remember how we used to dream / those nights would never end / those nights would never end / It was the sweetness of your skin / It was the hope of all we might have been / that fills me with the hope to wish / impossible things_

At the time, she'd just loved those lyrics, thought it was beautiful writing.  The  _remembers_ all felt appropriate for this yearbook, for graduation and the end of high school.  But now it strikes Piper how melancholy it is...and how heartbreakingly appropriate.  

She blinks out some tears and they drip onto the thin sharpie scrawl.  

Was that what she'd always been to Alex?  What _they_ had always been?  An impossible thing? 

Piper had always taken them as a certainty...at least, she had since that first kiss, since she crossed Alex's kitchen and changed everything.  The break up had shocked her.  Even the tension between them over the long distance had shocked her, like they would be the first couple in the world to not have a problem with it.  

Alex, though.  Alex had never seemed shocked.  Alex had always been scared of the exact things Piper never considered.  In the first month after they broke up, when Piper was still obsessing over every element of it, she kept coming up against how  _doomed_ Alex had made them sound.

No.  She can't believe that.  She can't have been so damn wrong.   _This_  can't have been their inevitable end point.  

She'd said as much, once.  Alex had even reminded her of it, but maybe she'd never believed it.

_There's no scenario where we're just... over._

More tears are falling.  Piper closes the yearbook and starts moving back in time.  Alex hadn't even signed her sophomore or freshmen yearbooks...they'd had a free period at the end of the day, out at the football stadium, to swap books back and forth.  Alex had probably just gone home early.  Piper can barely look at those pages, the exclamation points and cliches and abbreviations from all those school friends who didn't end up mattering at all.  

The middle school yearbooks are all the same: short, sarcastic notes making fun of Piper's request for a signature.  Fifth and fourth grade are just Alex's name, big and loopy and still in all caps - she used to get in trouble for that, especially when they were supposed to be learning cursive -  but Piper had circled her photo in neon pink pen, even written a **BFF** across the top of the fourth grade one.

Third grade there's no Alex.  Just Piper, with her braided pigtails and nervous smile.   She seems so tiny.  Minus these past seven months, and the two junior year when they weren't speaking,  _this_ was the last point in her life she hadn't had Alex.  

She thinks again of what she'd said to Polly.  Alex has been her best friend since they were nine fucking years old, and last night she could have died, and they wouldn't have talked or seen each other for more than half a year.

Unacceptable.

Piper swipes the back of her hand over her eyes and stands up, leaving the mess of papers in her floor.  She puts back on her outfit from earlier, the too short, cut up Field Day shirt, and a pair of sweatpants, and then she goes downstairs and takes the keys to her mom's car.

She's pretty sure everyone is dead asleep, but she keeps the headlights off and creeps the car out of the driveway.  Then she drives to the hospital.

 

* * *

 

Diane's asleep in one of the hard wooden chairs in Alex's hospital room.  It looks uncomfortable, like she could shift and fall off at any moment, but Piper knows from experience that Alex's mom can sleep anywhere.  On the rare occasions she didn't have work on Saturday or Sunday mornings, Piper and Alex would wake up to find her still on the couch, sleeping through them making breakfast and carrying on conversations at a perfectly natural volume - though it had taken a year for Alex's insistences that Piper didn't have to whisper to sink in.

Piper's still as quiet as possible as she sneaks into the not-quite-dark hospital room, and she picks up the free chair and very gently sets it down on the other side of Alex's bed.  

She's been there nearly five minutes, aware that there's something creepy about this, just watching Alex sleep, uninvited at that, but unable to deny that it's easier to be here.  

Then, a quiet voice cuts through the room, "I can hear you breathing, dumbass."  Alex's head turns, the whites of her eyes seeming too big in the semi-darkness as she stares at Piper.

"I'm still mad at you," Piper whispers, because she is.  "But, I...I need to be here." She wants that to come out authoritative and non-negotiable, just like this new way she's learned to talk to her parents, but instead it just sounds like she's begging.   _Don't push me to leave again_.  

There's a long silence.  Alex just watches her, absorbing that.  But finally, she nods.  "Okay."

She slides over, making room.

Piper's heart snags as she meets Alex's eyes.  "Really?"

Alex just nods her head, so Piper carefully moves around the short plastic railing and curls herself against Alex's side in the space she'd cleared.  There's a cannula looped around Alex's ears and under her nose, but she eases the tube toward even further to the other side of the bed where the machine is hooked up.  It's a tight fit, but they're used to that: Alex's twin bed and, a few times, Piper's bed in the dorms.

Piper rests an arm gingerly across Alex's stomach, and Alex snakes her arm under Piper's neck, pulling her even closer.  She presses her forehead against Alex's cheek, eyes immediately tearing over.  She wipes them on the shoulder of Alex's hospital gown and mumbles yet another "Fuck you" against her neck, but this one comes out feeble and so, so exhausted, and Alex only threads her fingers gently through Piper's hair in response.  She swears she feels Alex's lips against the crown of her head, right where her hair's parted, but the touch is so feather light she's maybe imagining it.  

 

* * *

 

When Alex wakes up, Piper's still there, and overwhelming relief fans out in Alex's chest.  

Her mom's chair has been vacated, and Alex flushes slightly, even though there's no need to be embarrassed.  It's more that she knows her mom would have been delighted to wake up to this development, but Alex is less trusting of it.  

Nothing more dangerous than getting her hopes up.

Piper wakes up soon after her; she scrunches her face and rubs it against Alex's shoulder, and Alex's heart turns over at the familiarity of the gesture.  Piper's a light sleeper, and she usually wakes up first, but when Alex beats her, she follows almost immediately, like her body's that in tune with the simple shift of Alex's breathing.  

Piper blinks blearily against the too bright white of the hospital room.  Then she smiles up at Alex, almost shy.  "Hey."

"Hey.  Morning."  

Piper stretches and her back collides with the plastic bed rail.  "Shit..."  She braces a hand on it, sitting up awkwardly, looking like she's not sure if she should rush out of bed.  "Sorry." 

"Don't be.  But there'll probably be a doctor in here soon."  

"Got it."  Piper shuffles down the bed and swings her legs off, moving into the chair instead.  She seems only half-awake and nervous: her eyes won't stay still.  "Um.  Where's your mom?" 

"I don't know.  Just woke up and she wasn't here...hopefully talking to someone about getting me out of here."

Piper's gaze finally settles.  "Today?"

"They said this morning, probably."

"Oh.  Good.  That's good."  She rubs her face with her hand, trying to will herself awake.  "What time is it?"

"Um.  Almost eight, I think."

"I should probably...I need to take my mom's car home."

Alex frowns.  "Where's your car?"

"Northampton."  Alex lifts an eyebrow, questioning, and Piper's expression gets the slightest hint of accusation.  "I was really drunk when your mom called."

"Oh, right.  Birthday festivities."  Alex is proud of how neutral she sounds.  "Did Polly drive you?"

"No.  She was drunk, too.  We were having a party."

A party at their apartment, no doubt.  Alex grits her teeth, bitterness sliding down her throat.  

Then Piper adds, "Polly called our Shakespeare professor to give me a ride.  Apparently they're sleeping together."

The bitterness dissolves, and Alex's eyes widen and snap back to Piper's.  " _What_?  Seriously?   _Polly_?"

"Yeah."  Piper gives her a hint of a smirk.  "She says he's only an  _adjunct professor_ , so it's fine."

"Dramaaaa _,"_ Alex sing songs gleefully.  "Jesus.  That actually makes her slightly more interesting to me."

Piper's smirk fades the slightest bit.  "She was actually really great.  I was really drunk, and having a total breakdown in front of the entire party.  She got everybody out and made sure I got here."

Alex looks away again.  She doesn't want this, doesn't want that image in her head.  It's bad enough she'll have to imagine her mom finding her, have to imagine that  _forever_ , but she's been forcing herself not to think about Piper.  Telling herself _Piper_ isn't someone she did this to.

Just like that, the silence turns tense.  Piper obviously brought that up for a reason, wanting Alex to know, wanting her to see what she did, but she doesn't seem inclined to push it, not right now anyway.  Alex wonders if she's getting the feeling she always had, the 'too good to ruin' feeling.  

Because last night had been good.  Seven months of not touching Piper, not sleeping and waking up beside her, nothing...last night had been a gift.  An aching, fleeting, possibly cruel gift.  

"Anyway," Piper says eventually.  "I should...my mom's car, you know."

"Right."

Piper stands up.  She looks particularly young, for some reason.  Maybe it's just that dumb T-shirt.  "But you'll be going home soon?"

"Yeah.  Should be."  She forces herself to look at Piper.  "What about you?  Heading back today?"

"I...no.  I don't think so."

"Oh."  Alex wants to ask more.  She sort of hates this, knowing they're both holding back.  They never had to do that before.  It's never been this hard for them to talk.  

"Call me when you're settled back home, if you want," Piper says to the floor.  "We can talk, or something.  I'll just be at the house all day."

She's already starting toward the door, but Alex stops her, "Hey."  Piper turns.  "You really told your parents?"

"Yeah.  I did."  She shifts her weight, expression sheepish.  "I mean, technically half of it was a lie.  Which is painfully ironic, I'm aware.  But yeah, I told them."

Alex tilts her head at Piper, taking that in.  "That was...really brave.  I mean, kind of dumb.  The timing, at least.  But brave."   

Piper's face tightens, and Alex can _see_ the force of the word hitting her, and for the first time she really gets how much the _fucking coward_ must have hurt.  Piper swallows hard, visibly taking a second to get herself together, before saying lightly, "That's new.  And not just for you.  I don't think  _anyone_ has ever used that word to describe me.  Like, in the whole history of the universe."

Alex lets loose most of a smile.  

 

* * *

 

Alex doesn't call her.  

Even though Piper breaks down and calls the hospital around one pm, only to be told Alex Vause had already been discharged.  

Maybe last night had been a fluke.  Alex had been half asleep, either vulnerable and sympathetic, and it probably didn't count as much as her very deliberately  _not_ asking Piper to stay yesterday morning.  

Piper spends the day locked in her room, the phone in her lap, still poring obsessively over her boxes of keepsakes and photos.  When her dad gets home, she sticks her head out the door and listens to her parents fret over her.

"...not even spending time at the hospital."

"...at least _two_ days of classes, now, unless we get up early..."

She shuts the door and pretends not to hear them call her to dinner, all six times they try.

Just after nine, the phone rings, and Piper answers it before the first ring has even quieted.  "Hello?"

"Pipes?"

Her chest flutters in relief.  " _Hey_."

"Listen, uh.  Ignore the stalker connotations of this next sentence:  I'm outside your house."

Piper's smile is instantaneous.  She stands up and goes to her window, looking down at the headlights shining from the curb.  "No, that's not at _all_ stalker-esque. You've shown these tendencies before, you know.  Hovering outside my dorm."

"Yeah.  That didn't really work out so well, though.  Maybe I should leave."

Piper's stomach goes cold, and she can't _quite_ tell if Alex is kidding or not.  "No, no, don't.  Hold on.  I'm coming down.  Thirty seconds."

She hangs up, pulls on an old tennis hoodie, checks her reflection, then hurries down the stairs.  Her parents are in the living room.  "Hey, I'm going to Alex's."

They look up.  Her dad's starting to let his irritation seep out, finally.  "If she's well enough to drive over here," he says.  "You're probably okay to go back to school."

Piper's shoving her feet into shoes by the front door.  "It's been a  _day_."

"You're going on two."  

"Different classes on each one.  I'll email the professors." 

"Piper - "

"I may stay at Alex's tonight," she says, more out of spite than because she dares hope it might be true, closing the door behind her like it's the sentence's punctuation, not giving them a chance to protest.  

She can't help feeling slightly badass - badass and  _brave_ \- walking down the sidewalk to Alex's car.

"Hi."

"Hey."  Alex turns down the music - The Clash - when Piper ducks into the passenger seat.  She looks much more like herself - glasses, eyeliner, leather jacket - and it's so goddamn comforting that for a second Piper's breath catches in her throat.  

"Should you be driving around?"

"Fuck, yes.  I _need_ it.  And I feel fine.  They were just covering their ass, keeping me last night...making sure nothing unlikely went wrong."

"Is your mom home?"

"No.  I made her go to work.  I feel guilty enough she's missed this much."  Alex's face darkens for a second, then smooths out.  "Sorry to just show up.  It just hit me...for  _once_ , I'm the one with a car, and you're not.  I can be in total control."

Piper smiles slightly, but she can't help but add, "You were always kind of in control."

"I worked that illusion, at least," Alex says lightly.  Before Piper can think of a response, she adds, "I just figured I shouldn't come in."  

"Probably for the best."

Alex pulls into the road without mentioning where they're going.  "So, seriously.  How'd it go over?"  She cuts her eyes at Piper.  "Whatever they said, it won't bother me.  Probably won't be a surprise."

Even so, Piper doesn't mention what her dad said about tying herself down to someone like Alex.  Someone  _stuck_.  She does share the still hilarious sentiment that her parents wouldn't understand why she felt the need to lie, but mostly she just tries to put into words how much their reaction doesn't seem to matter.  How easy it suddenly seems to walk away from them.

"I never wanted to be that person who hits eighteen and starts yelling about how I'm living my own life, pretending like my parents aren't still the entire reason I'm able to be in school and live where I live and all that...but the thing is, college is clearly the most important thing I've ever done, to them.  They're not gonna cut off tuition.  That would hurt them more than me."

"True."  Alex is quiet for a second, then says tentatively, "I never thought it was all about what they would  _do_ to you, though.  You just never wanted to fall short of what they wanted."

Piper fights back a grimace.  "I know."  She leans against the passenger seat window, eyes on Alex.  She likes this, being in the car while she drives, watching her when she isn't looking.  It makes it a little easier to say things like,  "After the other night, that just seemed really, really unimportant." 

Alex goes quiet then, keeping her eyes on the road.  After a few minutes, when it becomes clear they aren't heading to her apartment, Piper asks idly, "What are we doing?" 

"I kinda thought you wanted to talk."

"I do."

"Okay.  I just don't feel being cooped up.  Kinda want to find somewhere to walk around."  

Piper nods.  Neither of them make a move to have a talk.  Alex turns up the radio.  

Then they pull into the empty high school parking lot and Piper shoots her a questioning look.  She smiles a little.  "What?  Seemed appropriate."  

More appropriate than she knows; Piper's practically spent the past two days drowning herself in memories.  

The whole lot is empty, but Alex still pulls into Piper's old parking space, right in the center, like some unshakable instinct.  Neither of them mention it.  They get out of the car, and Piper looks at Alex expectantly before she heads toward the football stadium, really the only direction to _walk_ on the small campus without merely circling the building.

They're a few feet apart, still not talking, for a few minutes at least.  Then, "Pipes?"

"Yeah?"

"Why are you still here?"  For the first time, the question doesn't seem scornful and defensive.  Just like she really wants to know.

"I just..."  Piper pauses, looking for the answer.  She's sick of pretending not to know.  "This doesn't feel finished.  You know?  It feels too big for me to just go back and pretend like nothing happened, and that all we got out of it was yelling at each other."

Alex doesn't say anything for a second.  She looks over at Piper.  "So it's not that you're waiting for me to tell you I'm leaving the cartel, so you can sigh with relief and take me back?"

Her cheeks heat up in the dark, and Piper stares straight ahead.  Her answer is halting, and she doesn't sound certain, "I...know you said you aren't leaving. And...no, I don't think I'm waiting for that."  

She can feel the weight of Alex's eyes even without looking.  " _But_?"

"But it scares me that you aren't."  That's true enough that there's strength behind it, and Piper makes herself look over and meet Alex's gaze.  

"It shouldn't," Alex says firmly.  "There's no connection to what happened."

"You _have_ to know how stupid that sounds."

"No, I  _don't_ , Piper.  It's how I got the drugs, sure, but that's like saying...there was a connection between going to high school and smoking pot."  That argument is so patently ridiculous that Piper can't think of a way to counter it.  "I worked for Fahri for almost a year without touching the stuff.  I can do that again.  The job had nothing to do with the using." 

"What about me?"  Piper asks quietly.  

Alex's head jerks, her expression sharp. "What  _about_ you?"

Piper's expression is pained.  "Is it supposed to just be a coincidence?  When you started?"

Now Alex is the one looking away.  Glaring ahead, angry.  She clenches out, "No."  It takes nearly a full minute before she follows up.  "I meant it, when I said I didn't do it much.  I was spacing it out.  I was careful...maybe once, twice a month at most."  Her breathing sounds staggered.  "I was so out of it, the first month after..."  She waves a hand, still looking pissed off, but not specifically at Piper.  Pissed to be talking about this.  Pissed to have to say it out loud.  "I was screwing up work.  And if I lost that, too, then it was all for nothing.  So I just wanted one night...where I stopped feeling bad.  Then maybe I could do what I was supposed to."  She's being vague in the details, about what _work_ entails, but Piper realizes she doesn't want to know.  "And I did.  It worked. And that was enough for awhile.  But it just...helped.  Every once in awhile it helped."  

She stops walking, leaning against the fence by the field house, running a hand through her hair.  "Then the other night...it was almost your birthday.  I didn't have you anything.  I wasn't going to see you, or call.  I felt like shit about it.  And I was mad at you.  For leaving.  For not coming home all summer, and I didn't want to feel anything over you or your goddamn birthday.  So."  She shrugs, like the rest is self-evident.  

Quiet wedges between them, and then Piper makes a low, crooked sound, stuck in the back of her throat.  

Alex looks at her for the first time since starting this whole story.  She straightens up, arching off the fence.  "It's not your fault, Pipes."  

"I  _know_ it's not, you asshole."  Anger's got its hands on her throat again, and without even thinking, Piper shoves Alex's shoulders, sending her tripping back against the fence.  "It's yours.  That was so fucking stupid, Alex."

Alex is giving her this wide open look.  "So you were serious.  About still being mad."

"Of course I'm still fucking mad.  I'm never _not_ going to be mad, Alex, because I'm never going to be able to stop  _feeling_ that night.  Jesus, you have no idea, you have  _no_ fucking clue."  It's rushing back: the anger, the fear, all of it twisting madly in her chest.  "Fuck, Alex...you know your mom called as _soon_ as she got to the ER.  Her voice came over the answering machine, and she was crying - "

"Stop it."  Alex's face constricts, genuine panic leeching into her eyes.  

"She said you weren't  _breathing_ enough, Alex.  And I'm drunk, and panicking, and I just kept asking if you were gonna be okay, like just wanting her to say of course, it's fine, she's just an  _idiot_ , but she's gonna live...and instead she said they didn't know."

"Pipes, I'm serious, I get it,  _stop_."

"No, fuck, you can deal with  _hearing_ about it.  So I get to ride for two and a half hours, and I kept thinking you could already have died.  You could have died as soon as I hung up the phone, there'd be no way of knowing.  I couldn't get out of the damn car at the hospital.  Physically couldn't move."  Alex vaults off the fence, walking away from her, and Piper follows.  "I figured I'd walk into the hospital and either you'd be dead or you'd be okay.  But then I found your mom, and she still looked so fucking scared.  And we still didn't know.  She said you had a good chance, but that still wasn't it, that still wasn't  _it's fine, she's an idiot, but she'll be fine_.  

" _Shut up_ , Piper!"  Alex whirls around, wild eyed.  "You think I don't know I was stupid?  What I did to my mom?" 

"And to  _me_ ," Piper hurls out heatedly, shoving her again.  

" _Yes_ , fine, I know, okay?  But it didn't feel like that...it didn't feel like I could do _anything_ to you, Pipes.  You weren't fucking _there_." 

They both stop, looking at each other.  The moment seems to hold the weight of everything.  

Finally, Piper says softy, "I know."

It seems like Alex needed to hear that.  Her shoulders sag, face collapsing a little.  She nods hard.  Then, eventually, offers, "I'm sorry."

"Me, too."  

They step toward each other at the same time, hugging and holding on other like it's everything.

Piper feels obscurely afraid of what will happen when they let go.  

"This isn't working for me," she says eventually, the words muffled in Alex's hair.

Alex gives a short, wet laugh.  "That sounds like a break up line, Pipes."  She eases back to look at Piper.  "You can't break up with me twice."

"I'm serious."  They start walking again, and Alex reaches down and threads her fingers between Piper's.  "Alex...all I could think when I was sitting in that waiting room is that you could die, and we wouldn't have talked for  _so long_.  Isn't that just so incredibly fucked?"  

"It is."  But there's something closed off in Alex's voice that makes Piper lose her nerve.  She goes silent, squeezing Alex's fingers lightly, relieved when she squeezes back.

They end up by the baseball fields, and Piper pulls up short when they get close to the bleachers.  "Oh, come on, really?"

For a second, Alex looks confused, and Piper remembers this was her primary hang out in high school, not solely the setting for their first major fight - though not the worst, not anymore.  Then a shadow passes over her eyes as she seems to realize what Piper's referring to, but she doesn't walk away, or make a joke.  Just tugs on Piper's hand.  "Let's sit."

She lets go when they climb the bleachers, and Piper watches Alex slump down, leaning against a bench and fumbling in her pocket for a cigarette.

"I thought you sort of quit."

Alex cracks a smile.  "Old time's sake."  

Piper sits backwards on one of the metal benches, legs dangling down, looking up at Alex a row above her.  "I...probably do have to go back tomorrow. Don't want to miss any class more than once, you know?"

"Sure."  Alex tilts her head back, exhaling smoke toward the sky, so it's hard to see her face.  After a moment, she adds, "Want me to drive you?"

Piper's face lights up.  "Really?"

"Yeah.  Least I can do after stranding you here.  And it doesn't sound like a two and a half hour ride with your dad would be much fun right now."

"Thanks.  That'd be really great, actually."  Hope flares again in her stomach, and Piper clears her throat before asking, "And then what?" 

Alex glances over.  "What?"

"You go back?  We keep not talking?" 

"That was kind of your call, Pipes."

"Well it was a bad call," she says forcefully.  "That's what I'm trying to say, Alex.  It's not working for me. I can't... _not_ have you in my life."  She tries to smile.  "You can't make me.  I never learned how to do it.  Not since fourth grade."

Alex's face is blank.  "So what is it you want, Piper?"

"I...I know our lives don't completely fit right now."  Alex flinches, and Piper admits, "And I know there's not just one reason for that."  It's the cartel, sure, but it's also Smith, and the apartment.  It's everything Alex was always worried about.  "But, Jesus, Alex.  You were my best friend.  For  _years_ before it was anything else, and just...I need that.  I need  _you_."  

Alex's eyes are screwed shut, her knees drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped around them.  Like she's trying to make herself small.  It takes awhile for her to force out, "No."  It sounds like it hurts to say.  Like Piper's hurting her.  Then, more vehemently, " _No_.  I can't do that again."

"What does that mean?"  

"We were never  _just friends_ , Piper.  Well. _I_ wasn't.  You kissed some boy in sixth grade and for one day I let myself hate you for it.  Then I stopped.  I wasn't gonna be that girl who ruined everything over something you couldn't help.  Because _I_ needed _you_.  So I decided I could be friends, and that could be enough.  And it mostly was."  Her voice catches, but her eyes are fierce.  "But it's not anymore.  It _can't_ be.  We're on the other side of it, now, you can't ask me to..."  She shakes her head, making a low, angry sound.  " _No_.  It's all or nothing, I can't...I can't do halfway."

Piper turns around on the bleachers, facing away from Alex, elbows on her knees, head in her hands.  She feels like she's just taken a punch.  

"Okay," Piper says eventually, every syllable held in tight, deliberate control.  "Okay.  Just tell me...do you think we can be together right now?"

The answer takes an eternity.  "No."

Piper's eyes fill up, and her voice loses its fight, trembling all over the place.  "Did you _ever_ think we would...end up together?"

This silence is even longer.  She hears the soft clank of shoes on the bleachers, and then feels Alex's forehead tip against the back of her head, her arms slipping around Piper's shoulders from behind. 

"No." 

Piper starts to cry, quietly.  She reaches up and holds onto Alex's arms.  "I did."

"I know."  The edges of her words are gone, every syllable flannel soft.  "I like that you did."

She knows this is supposed to be closure.  It's supposed to be a better, cleaner ending.  Bittersweet, honest, not something to torture herself over if anything bad ever happens.

But it hurts like a beating.  Like the loss is happening all over again, the wound freshly torn open.  Piper just keeps crying.  She isn't sure if Alex is.  

"I really do love you," Alex whispers into her hair.

Her whole heart in her voice, Piper says it back.  "I love you, too."  

 

* * *

 

 

They're quiet on the eventual walk back to the car.  Alex reaches for Piper's hand again, but it doesn't feel sweet.  It feels like holding hands across a busy intersection, through dark woods, a haunted house: clinging out of fear.  

Alex turns off the radio when she cranks the car.  She doesn't want to assign any song to this moment.

"About tomorrow...."  Piper's voice is wrecked.  "You don't have to - "

"I want to," Alex cuts her off.  

"Okay."

The car's rumbling, but she doesn't pull out yet.  "Um.  Where am I taking you?"

Piper looks over at her, surprised.  "Can I stay?"

Alex doesn't pretend to misunderstand.  She nods, even though it's stupid, even though they're prolonging the hard part, rubbing salt in the wound.  

She drives them both to her apartment, glad her mom isn't home yet, because she'd think this meant something good.

It's not that late, but they get ready for bed anyway.  Without being asked, Alex gives Piper something to sleep in, this soft, worn, Rolling Stones shirt that hangs halfway to her knees.  

Piper crawls into the twin bed first, like it's so natural for her, and then gives Alex this big eyed, _waiting_ look.  Her eyes are red, hair messy and wind blown, and she's so beautiful and familiar it aches.  

Alex could kiss her right now.  She _wants_ to; there's longing tugging insistently at her chest, kicking at her ribs, but she can't bring herself to take it that far.  

So she slides under the sheets beside Piper, bringing her walkman and a tape with  _Pipes - The Cure_  written on it, one of those cassettes from God knows how long ago, filled with Piper's favorite band.  They lie on their sides, facing each other, and Alex curls her lips into a smile that doesn't make it to her eyes.  She reaches out, letting her fingers skate across the curve of Piper's cheek, smooth her hair back, but she doesn't allow herself more than that.

"Here."  She sets the headphones between them on the pillow, their ancient sleepover routine.  This night is the best she can give Piper, one last gift as an apology for refusing friendship.  She spins the volume up, presses Play.  

 _Boys Don't Cry_ bursts the life, right in the middle, but Piper takes the Walkman and starts fast forwarding, like she's looking for a particular song.  Like she remembers the track listing.  

She stops at the beginning of  _To Wish Impossible Things_ , and Alex's chest constricts like a reflex.  She can feel Piper watching her.  Like she knows, somehow, that this fucking song has always cracked something open inside her.  

Alex lifts her eyes to the glowing stars on her ceiling and feels Piper find her hand under the covers.  Their legs are tangled.  The music fills up her throat and her eyes, and she blinks heavily, sending tears spilling from the corners of her eyes, streaking into her hair.  Piper reaches over and moves the headphones to the back of the pillow, tilting against the headboard so she can slide across the gap, pulling Alex close.  

She could kiss her.  She wants to kiss her.  She wants to do everything, one last time.

But it would hurt too much when it was over.  

So they just fall asleep like that.  Together, at least until morning.

 

* * *

 

Alex takes her to her house the next morning but doesn't come in, just says she'll circle the block a few times while Piper tells her mother she's leaving.  Diane wasn't in the apartment when they woke up, off to another shift, and Piper's both sad and relieved she doesn't have to say goodbye, explain that she's not sure when she'll be back.  

Piper's wearing Alex's Rolling Stones T-shirt, rumpled from being slept in, and a pair of Alex's old, faded jeans that hang loose around her hips.  Her mother gives her a stiff, disapproving look when she sees her.  

"Mom.  I'm heading back to school.  Alex is giving me a ride."  

Her mother huffs.  "You aren't going to say goodbye to your father and brother?" 

"You guys have been in such a hurry for me to get back," Piper says blithely.  "If I leave now, I'll make my last class."  

"Fine."  Carol glances past her, eyes narrow.  " _Alex_ didn't want to come in and say hello?"

Piper makes a scoffing sound.  "Not really, no."

"We're planning on coming up to Northampton in a few weeks.  For Parent's Weekend. Take you out to dinner...talk a bit more about all this, when the dust has settled."  

"Okay.  But there's nothing to talk about."  She hesitates, then admits.  "We broke up." 

Carol smiles, unable to hide her delight.  Piper has never, ever come so close to hating her mother than in that moment.  

"Last March," she clarifies tersely.  

The smile dims but doesn't disappear.  "Then...this weekend...?"

"I still love her, Mom."  Piper makes herself hold eye contact.  "She's still really important to me."

"Well.  That's alright, then."  She says it like she's conceding something.  Like they've just reached a compromise.  Piper can barely stand to hug her goodbye.

 

* * *

 

They don't get milkshakes.  They don't sing to the radio.  It's the first time it's ever felt like they're driving away from something instead of toward it.  

The music is soft but not too sad, almost deliberately neutral; Alex keeps changing tapes.  At one point she even switches to the radio, which is unprecedented.  Piper doesn't make fun of her for it.  

The dread for the goodbye is a knot in her stomach, and she's starting to regret this, dragging it out, doing it right.

There's a reason she always just _leaves_.

They're about forty-five minutes from Northampton, and Piper's looking out the window, eyes glazed over, not really seeing anything, just feeling crushed by the quiet, when her eyes land on a bright red billboard advertising some gas station, and for no reason at all, she gets a rush of dizzying, breath stealing déjà vu to the ride home Saturday night.  Passing that same billboard - probably not the _exact_ billboard, just identical, and close by - Polly patting her knee, their professor driving, Piper silent and tight, strangled by her own terror.  

Her whole body gets hot, sweat trickling at her hairline, her lungs contracting.  "Pull over."

Alex seems startled out of some daze.  "What?"

"Pull over, pull over, right now, Alex,  _pull over!_ "

"Okay, okay, it's okay, Pipes, hold on, you're okay..."  Alarmed, Alex swerves across two lanes and takes the next exit, pulling over into the grass partway down.  She reaches over, undoing Piper's seatbelt, unlocking the doors so Piper can get out.

But instead Piper leans across the seat, taking Alex's face in her hands and kissing her, fierce and desperate.  It's like gasping for air after drowning.

Alex kisses back on instinct, fingers stroking the back of Piper's neck, all soothing comfort.  It's hurried and panicked, but as soon as Piper calms enough to slow down, to soften the slightest bit, Alex pulls away, her forehead still against Piper's, expression pained.  "Pipes..."

"Please, Alex..."  There's barely any breath behind the words.  "Please promise it won't happen again.  Promise nothing's gonna happen to you, I need to hear you say it..."

Alex's face relaxes.  She cups Piper's cheek.  "I promise."  She cracks a fraction of a smile, lifting Piper's hand from her own cheek and crooking their pinky fingers around each other.  "Really."  

Piper nods hard.  She exhales.  Then she leans forward and kisses Alex again.  Slower.  Deeper.

Alex pulls away, eyes low.  "Don't..."

"Sorry."  Piper leans away, moving back to her own seat, trying not to be hurt.  She stares out the windshield.  "We aren't nothing." 

"What?"

"You said all or nothing.  And I get it, I really do.  I won't ask you to..."  She closes her eyes, swallowing back a whole sea of tears, and shakes her head.  "But we're not  _nothing_ , Alex.  We're never  _nothing_."

There is no journey from _everything_ to _nothing_.  That isn't possible.

"I know," Alex says.  She reaches over, stroking Piper's hair.  Her voice sounds thick, like it's coming from underwater.  "I know we're not.  You're right.  Goddamn college brain."  

Piper laughs and it sounds like crying.

Alex keeps her hand where it is.  "You okay?" 

"Yeah.  Yeah, we can go." 

 

* * *

 

They pull up in front of the apartment building, and Alex can barely seem to look at her.  Piper hates that it's the same place, where they almost lived.  She hates herself for that.  

They're quiet for a long time.  Not sure how to start this.

"Do you...do you want to come in?"  Piper knows the answer.  

"No."  It comes out harsh, and Alex makes a visible effort to smooth her expression.  "Better not."

"I can...run upstairs and change really quick.  Bring you back your clothes."

"Keep them.  Wouldn't be the first time."

"True."  Piper eyes the apartment out the window, then she remembers something.  "Wait, though.  I actually do want to grab something for you."

Alex closes her eyes, like she's just trying to make this harder.  "Piper..."

"Really.  You'll like it.  Please?"

"Okay."

Piper gets out of the car, relieved to do it and know she's coming right back.

Polly's stretched out on her stomach in the floor of the living room, surrounded by binders and textbooks, but she leaps up when she sees Piper.  "Hey!  You're back."

"Hold on.  Alex is downstairs, I gotta run something down to her."

Polly lifts her eyebrows, a question.  "She's not coming up?"

"No, I...just gimme a second, okay?" 

Polly nods, and Piper disappears into her bedroom, opening up the top drawer of her nightstand until she finds what she's looking for.  

Alex is out of the car when she gets back down, leaning against the passenger door, cigarette between her fingers.  It's shaking the slightest bit, but she drops it and stomps it out when she sees Piper.

"Here..."  She hands over a thin stack of photos:  half the pictures from that day at the beach, and the second they're in Alex's hands she regrets it.  Maybe it seems cruel, especially right now: this evidence of their last perfect day.  "Sorry," she says stupidly as Alex flips through them.  "I don't...I don't know if you want them.  I kept some.  I can take these back - "

"No."  Alex shakes her head, looking up.  Her eyes are too bright.  "No, I want them.  Thanks."

Piper nods.  They look away from each other, shifting their weight.  Stuck.  

"I don't know how to do this," Piper says finally.  

Alex smiles, and there's nothing happy about it.  "That's because I always say goodbye."

It's true.  Piper leaves, but Alex pulls away.  Alex ends phone calls, Alex turns and walks toward Greyhound buses, Alex nudges Piper toward the car.  

Piper always wondered if that was on purpose.  

She isn't sure what they're allowed.  Can she kiss her?  Say  _I love you_?  

Alex is playing with Piper's fingers, eyes on their linked hands, and then she tugs her close, wrapping her arms and holding on.

She feels Alex kiss her cheek.  Piper ducks her head and presses her lips against Alex's neck.  

She may have stood there forever, scared to move, but Alex does her job and pulls away.

"Bye, kid.  Pipes."

Piper nods for too long.  "Be safe, okay?"

"Promise."  

She touches Alex's wrist, pointlessly.  She wants to grab on.

Alex lifts her gaze upward, very deliberately, tears caught in her eyes but not falling.  

"Alex."

"Yeah?"

Piper shakes her head.  She doesn't have anything.  Just wanted to say it.

"It's okay," Alex says finally.  "I'll go.  It's okay."

"Bye."  

"Bye."

"Bye."

Alex turns.  She's clenching the photos in her hand.  She ducks into her car and it takes her a second to get the keys in.  The engine rumbles to life and she glances over, lifting a hand.  

Piper just keeps nodding.  

She watches Alex drive away, watched until her car disappears down the road.

She stays there for another few minutes, tears falling now, silent and steady.  She wraps her arms around her stomach and walks back inside, up to the apartment.  

Polly's expression tightens into concern when she sees her.  "Pipes.  What happened?  You guys aren't back together?"  

"No.  We aren't."  She takes a deep shaky breath, and she goes to sit beside Polly on the floor.

She tells her everything, the whole story.  The way you'd tell it to a best friend.

 

* * *

 

 

For the rest of the semester there is nothing.

Piper spends fall break at Haley's parents cabin in the mountains with her friends.

She only goes home the day before Thanksgiving, doesn't leave the house, drives back to school the day after, claiming too much schoolwork.  

She talks her parents into spending most of Christmas break on a family ski trip, visiting her older brother.

She plays The Cure constantly for awhile, but this time Polly doesn't give her shit about it.

She sends Diane a birthday card, with a long, overly sentimental letter, like she's never going to see her again.  

When Alex's birthday comes she feels sick all day but she doesn't send anything.  

She wakes up with panic attacks sometimes, not sure if she's been dreaming about the hospital, specifically, or just dreaming that it's happened again, and she always ends up with the phone in her hand, talking herself out of dialing.  

This time it's not her being a coward.

This time it's what Alex wants.   

 

* * *

 

 

In late January, they're having movie night in the apartment, a group of girls draped on the furniture and on the floor, sharing three bowls of popcorn and drinking homemade daiquiris.  

The phone rings.  

Polly's seen the movie and doesn't bother pausing when she answers.  "Hello?"  Her eyebrows go up.  "Yeah, just a second."  She holds it out to Piper, expression blank.  "For you." 

Piper tucks it between her shoulder and ear.  "Hello?"

"Pipes?"

She smiles, and feels it in her whole body.  "Alex!  Hey."  Then, the smile dimming, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, everything's fine.  I just...I missed you."  Piper can hear her smile: half sheepish, half smirky.  

She stands up, walking into her bedroom, waving at the others to keep going without her.  "I miss you, too."

"Good."  Now it's definitely a smirk.  

Piper keeps the lights off in her room and curls up on her bed, closing her eyes, focusing entirely on Alex's voice.  

"So.   Catch me up.  What's been going on?"

Piper tells her.  And Alex tells her back.

Something in her chest starts to grow back together.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decided to add a brief epilogue to this one. Should be up in a day or two. But definitely let me know what you think of this one.


	4. Epilogue

"Are you still there?" 

"Yeah.  I'm here."

"Good."

...

...

...

"Where are you right now?"

"Why?"

"I don't know.  I like being able to picture it."

"In my room.  In bed.  But don't get any ideas, perv.  I'm not telling you what I'm wearing."  

"Duly noted." 

"Where are  _you_ right now?"  

"My room.  Also in bed.  And before you ask, I'm wearing your shirt."

"The Who?"

"Yeah."

"You've had that thing for like three years now, Pipes.  I think it's okay if you claim ownership."  

"I don't know.  I just like thinking of it as yours."

...

...

...

"Still there?"

"Still here."

 

* * *

 

It's slow at first.  A phone call every few weeks, maybe.  But they talk for hours, every time, and Piper spends the in between storing up things she wants to tell Alex: all those moments when she instinctually wonders what Alex would say about something, every story she just knows will make her laugh.

Piper's never the one to call.  She lets Alex take control, set the pace.  She's too greedy; if it were up to Piper, she'd call every day.  She's addicted to the moment Alex's voice first hits her, the way her body empties of tension, leaving her with oddly buoyant muscles and bones. 

It reminds her of playing Hide and Seek with Danny and Cal when they were little.  There was a tree in the middle of the backyard, the only tree big enough for climbing.  It was always base, every game ending with a mad race toward it, hands outstretched, reaching for the trunk, safe the second her finger's skimmed the bark.

That's what hearing Alex's voice feels like: reaching home base.  

 

* * *

 

 

"...so then Haley and her boyfriend did  _Don't Stop Believing._ "

"Oh, Jesus fuck."

"Hey, there's bravery in the cliches.  It's one of those songs everyone secretly wants to sing, but you don't want to be the one to do that."

"I can promise you, I've never secretly wanted to sing Journey."

"You'd hum if it was on.  No one can resist."

"Don't bother testing that.  So what did you sing?"

"Oh, I didn't."

"Why not?"

"I'd feel weird without you.  We've got all our duets down."

"Uh, that's sweet, Pipes, but if you're waiting on me to do karaoke, then you're _never_ going to do karaoke."

"You wouldn't sing  _Teenage Wasteland_ with me?"

" _It's_   _not called Teenage Wasteland_."

"I _know_ , I'm just fucking with you."

"Ha ha.  And no, I wouldn't.  I don't sing in public.  Or anywhere the radio can't drown me out."

"Karaoke performances aren't supposed to be  _good_."

"Easy for you to say."

"What's that mean?" 

"Don't fish for compliments."

"So you think I'm a good singer?"

"I'm not saying you should run away to Broadway or anything.  But you're adequate."

" _Adequate_."

"Yep.  That's all you get."

"If you wanted me to sing, Al, you just have to ask - "

"I'm only telling you to go fuckin nuts at the next karaoke night."

"I understand if you're missing it."

"You and Polly could duet on fucking Britney Spears or whatever you're into now."

" _You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar..."_

" _That's_ your go-to?"

" _I picked you out, I shook you up, and turned you around.  Turned you into someone new.  Now five years later, got the world at your_ \- okay, you don't have to laugh  _that_ much."

"I can't help it.  You're such a dork.  I kind of like you."

"Oh, yeah?"  

"Sometimes." 

* * *

  

"Tell me something."

"Tell you what sort of something?" 

"I don't know.  You can tell me what you've been up to.  I feel like I just ramble at you."  

"I like the rambling.  I learn so much...I'll never read Robert Frost the some way."

"I know you're making fun, but just watch.  You'll blow someone's mind with that someday."

"Probably.  Poetry comes up a lot in my circles."

"How would I know?  You don't talk about your circles."

"I don't know how much you want to hear."  

"I don't know either, but we can try.  What'd you do last weekend?"

"Went to a club.   _Everything_ was neon.  Even the alcohol.  Mia kept buying everyone rounds of these Jolly Rancher shots and they looked like green highlighters."  

"Mia?" 

"Yeah, I told you about her, she sort of works for us."

"One of the mules?"

"Mmm-hmmm."

"Oh.  Did you get drunk?"

"Eh.  I was okay.  Nothing there worth a hangover.  What about you, how was frat village?"

"What, you want a whole beer pong recap?"

"Only if you kicked ass.  Otherwise it's a terrible story."

 

* * *

 

There are certain things they don't ask.

She doesn't know if Alex is dating anyone, or sleeping with anyone.  She doesn't ask, because she probably isn't supposed to care.  She probably isn't allowed to mind.  So she'd rather not know.

Alex doesn't ask either.  Piper kisses people at parties or the club, she goes on dates, and very occasionally she spends the night with them.  Boys, mostly.  The first time she kisses another girl she's sober and anxious and oddly relieved when she doesn't feel much of anything.  Just like with the guys.  Even when she goes on dates, they feel like strangers.  

Nothing they do or say feels as good as the sound of the phone ringing, Alex's voice on the other side saying hello.

 

* * *

 

 

"Hello?"

"Hey, it's me."

"Wow, hey.  You're up early."

"Wanted to catch you before your final.  Wish you luck."

" _Alex_.  That's... _really_ sweet of you."  

"Your astonished tone is kind of ruining it." 

"Sorry.  I can't believe you even remembered."

"I think you're underestimating your own freak out, Pipes."

"Probably.  Sorry, I'm feeling kind of wired...pulled an all nighter last night.  Not the smartest idea, but I still needed to cram."

"If it makes you feel better, I also pulled an all nighter.  Haven't been to sleep yet."

"Hence you being awake to call me." 

"Fine, fuck, blow holes in my good deed.  I was trying to score points."

"You don't need to score points.  I'm glad you called.  I've been so fucking stressed all week.  I always feel better when we talk."

...

"Sorry.  Up all night.  No filter."

"Don't be sorry.  I'm just trying to remember all that SAT advice.  You have two number two pencils?  Balanced breakfast?"

"Did you take the SATs?"   

"You know I didn't, College.  Fahri didn't make me provide scores."

"Funny."

"Sorry.  Up all night.  No filter."

"Shut up."

"Not making ya feel better anymore?"

"Weirdly, you still are."

"Good.  Go eat your balanced breakfast.  Few more hours, and you're done for the semester."  

"Thank _God_.  Hey, also...will I see you this summer?"

...

...

"I...thought you were staying in Northampton and working?"

"I am.  But I can drive back, pretty easy."

...

"Or you could drive up here, maybe?  Come see me at work.  I can return the favor for all the free food you used to sneak me at Sonic." 

"I don't know, Pipes.  Probably gonna be kind of busy...moving around a little more this summer.  Could be hard to coordinate."

"Yeah.  Okay."

"Next Christmas, though?  Maybe?"

"Yeah, yeah, definitely.  Okay.  Christmas."  

"If you guys don't go skiing again."

"We won't."  

"Okay.  Good."

...

...

"I should...I gotta catch the bus to campus soon."

"Okay.  Good luck."

"Thanks, Alex.  Thanks for calling."

"Sure.  I'm sure you'll kick ass, nerd."

"Gee, thanks."

"I'll call you later.  Find out how it goes."

"Yeah, definitely.  Also you should sleep."

"You, too.  After the test, of course."

"Of course."

"Bye, Pipes."

"Bye, Alex.  Bye." 

 

* * *

 

Piper gets a job waiting tables at a restaurant close to campus, and she takes classes the first summer session but not the second.  She feels adult and self-sufficient in a way that hasn't hit her even after a year in the apartment.  She doesn't end up going home at all, not once, and she talks to her parents less and less.

Polly and Grace are there for half the summer, but they're traveling through most of July, and Haley and Jenna are home save for the occasional weekend visit.  July is a lonely month, with no classes and an apartment all to herself, but through it all there is Alex's voice.  She calls more frequently now, and Piper finally feels okay making the first call.  Most nights she sits on her balcony with the cordless phone tucked between her shoulder and her ear, talking and listening for hours.  

Alex keeps the details of her job vague, but she doesn't avoid the mere fact of it, and like anything can over time, it starts to feel normal.  Piper accepts it as the reality.  

  

* * *

 

 

"Al...Alex... _Alex_."

"Piper?  What is it, what's wrong?"

"I'm sorry, I'm...I'm really sorry, I know it's so late."

"It's okay, don't be sorry -"

"I shouldn't have called."

"Pipes, you're kind of scaring me.  Slow down, just tell me what's going on."

"Stupid dream.  Needed to make sure you're okay, needed to...hear it.  Sorry."

"Stop being sorry.  What dream?"

"I don't know, I don't - "

"Piper."

"Sometimes I wake up and I think I'm supposed to be at the hospital.  It's hard to explain.  Like your mom _just_ called and I'm supposed to be on my way but I'm not, and if I don't get there you aren't gonna wake up.  I don't know.  It felt more real tonight, for some reason.  I know it's stupid.  I'm sorry.  I shouldn't have woken you up."

...

"Alex?"

"I'm here."

...

"I...didn't know you still thought about that."

"Yeah, well.  Sometimes."

"It's been almost a year."

"I, I know...."

"Pipes...hey, c'mon, babe, don't cry.  Everything's okay."

" _Damn_ it...s-sorry. Sorry...delayed reaction..."

"Ssshh.  It's okay, Pipes.  I'm here."

...

...

"I'm okay, I'm fine.  Sorry.  Um.  Did I wake up your mom?"

"I'm not at home, I'm at a hotel...out of town.  Work stuff."

"Oh."

...

...

"You know I don't...I don't do drugs.  Ever.  I've kept that promise."

"I know.  I believed you."

"Do you...I don't know, do you wanna to talk about it?"

"No."

"Want me to stay on the phone?"

"Yeah.  Please."

"Okay.  Not going anywhere until you say so."

"Thanks."

...

...

...

...

...

"Alex?"

"Still here."  

 

* * *

 

That night, the night her two a.m. panic attack was bad enough to make Piper call, she keeps Alex on the phone for nearly an hour, barely talking, just saying her name and confirming her presence.  She wakes up embarrassed the next morning, aware of how ridiculous she must have seemed, and it's not until her last class of the day that she starts smiling like an idiot at the realization that Alex had called her  _babe_.

 

* * *

 

 

"Happy birthday!   _Officially_.  I know I'm the first to say it."

"Uh, yeah, because you're a little early.  But thanks."

"Wrong.  Not early.  Not in  _Paris_."

"What?  Wait...you're in Paris?"

"Fuck yeah I am.  Paris fucking France...where it is already your birthday.  I'm calling from the future, Pipes."

 "You didn't say you were going to Paris."

"I know, Fahri invited me along at the last minute.  It's actually a really big deal for me...but I didn't forget your birthday.  I wanted to call on the actual moment, but I figure Polly & Co. would be dragging you out to a bar."

"They are.  Getting there right at midnight...the second it's legal."

"Congratulations.  Not that you haven't been drinking for years anyway."

"Hey, don't harsh my soon to be legal buzz."

"I feel bad I'm not there to buy you your first legal drink.  Listen, buy yourself a shot of tequila, as soon as you get to the bar okay?  Before Polly or anyone else does.  Consider this a verbal IOU."

"You're going to pay me back for a shot of tequila?"  

"Yes.  I'm serious about this."

"Okay.  Holding you to it.  When I see you at Christmas."

"Deal."

"Though you just trumped my 21st birthday by being in fucking _Paris_."

"It's so beautiful here, Pipes.  I want you to see it.  You'd be one of those tourists trying to walk around and pretend you aren't a tourist."

"I can't tell, but I think that's an insult."

"You'd love it here.  You have to come someday."

...

...

...

"We don't have to talk about it, do we?"

"No.  I'm trying not to think about it."

"This year's better."

"I know.  It couldn't be worse."

"I know."

"I wish you were here."

...

...

"Me, too.  Happy birthday, Pipes."

 

* * *

 

She sees Alex over Christmas, for the first time in over a year, and for the first time she has to admit that the phone calls aren't enough.

It's not like other visits, when they'd slipped seamlessly into _inseparable_ mode as soon as Piper arrived.  She sees Alex three times, twice with Diane there.  On the third time, Christmas Eve, it's snowing, and Alex kisses her in the car and they both nearly come unspooled.  

Piper's on top of her in the passenger seat, the seat nearly horizontal, their shirts flung over the steering wheel, before reality wedges between them like merciful, frustrating clockwork.  Alex whispers her name, just  _Piper_ , and it sounds like  _stop_.  Like  _don't_ and  _please_ and  _we can't_.  

She drives back to Northampton three days after Christmas.  Alex calls her five minutes before midnight on New Year's Eve and carries on like nothing happened.  

She remembers to let the phone calls be enough.  

 

* * *

 

"Hello?"

"Hey, it's me."

"You're back?"

"Yeah, just landed.  I'd say sorry for calling so late but, y'know, you made me."

"I just like knowing when you're safe on the ground."

"Wouldn't have pegged you for plane anxiety, Pipes."

"Not anxiety.  Just caution."

"Did you get my postcard?"

 

* * *

 

By the second semester of Piper's junior year, the postcards are frequent.  She has every one memorized, and she covers a section of her bedroom wall with them:  Paris and London and Greece and Rome and Istanbul.  

 _Wish you were here,_ a postcard from Cambodia proclaims.  

Piper wishes it, too, starts to wish it so much it aches.  Alex feels further away than ever, even though there's technically no difference between the phone calls.  Sometimes Piper lies on her bed and stares at the collage of adventures, feeling the smallness of Northampton and the Smith campus, hating that Alex's world is cracking wide open without her.

She wonders if this is what Alex felt, when she left for collage, expanding beyond their hometown for the first time.  Leaving Alex behind.

 

* * *

 

"I heard you saw my mom."

"Yeah.  I was home for Cal's graduation."

"Jesus, I can't believe Calvin's out of high school.  I should send a card."

"It was a hellish experience.  Principal Watkins came up to me after."

"Oh, that pervy little shit."

"I'm sure he has fond memories of _you_.  In the lighting booth.  With  _Liz_."

"You know what I love, Pipes?  It's been five years, and you _still_  sound bitter.  I'd have taken  _you_ up there.  All you had to do was ask."

...

"Anyway.  My mom went on and on about how good it was to see you."

"It was good to see her, too.  I've missed her."

...

"I wish you'd been there."  

"I know.  Sorry.  This week's been crazy.  Technically, I've been to Jakarta now, but I didn't leave the airport."

"Where are you now?"  

"Still Madrid."  

"And you chose that over a _high school graduation_?"

"Agonizing decision, believe me."

 

* * *

 

Alex is happy.

Piper can tell; she likes hearing the smile in Alex's voice, likes the ease of her, likes that it feels a million miles from Alex in a hospital room. But Sometimes, selfishly, it hurts to think maybe Alex can be happy without her. That this job, the traveling, the money...maybe it can be enough.

But she keeps calling. And surely that's something.

 

* * *

 

 

"Pipes!"

"Alex?"  

"Yeah, hey!  Can you hear the music?  Hear what it is?"

"Where _are_ you?"

"Party.  At a client's penthouse.  But listen, listen, the song came on and I had to call."

...

...

"Nice."

"I know.  I thought about you."

"What?  I can't hear you - "

"Hold on, hold on, I'll go outside..."

...

"Can you hear me now?  I'm in the hall."

"Yeah, I hear you.  Are you good?"

"I'm great.  I'm a little drunk."

"You don't say."

"I wanted to call you.  I wanted you to hear the song."

"I'm glad you called.  I haven't heard your drunk voice in forever."

"Why isn't  _your_  voice drunk?  I mean.  Why aren't  _you_ fucking drunk, Pipes?  It's Saturday night.  You're the one in college.  College is always drunk."

"I don't know.  Getting kind of bored with it.  Same three bars.  Same house parties."

"You should come to New York.  Did I say I was in New York?  You should come here.  The parties are better." 

"And you're there."

"And I'm here."  

...

"I mean it.  I'll send you a ticket.  Come for a weekend."  

"A weekend?"

...

"I wish I could, Al.  But I don't think I'd be able to leave."

"Mmm.  Now I  _really_ want to convince you."

...

"I was magic this week, Pipes.  So fucking brilliant."

"I bet you were."

"And my mom quit Wal-Mart.  Did I tell you that?  I keep forgetting to tell you stuff."

"You didn't tell me.  That's great."

"Yeah.  I'm sending her enough money now.  I made her quit.  No more night shifts."

"That's amazing."

"Yeah.  See, Pipes?  It's all good."

...

...

"Are you still outside?"

"Well, outside the party.  I'm sitting on the floor in the hall.  This building's super fucking fancy."  

"Do you have to go back?"

"No.  I can talk.  Unless you're busy."

"No.  Not busy at all."

 

* * *

 

Senior year feels like a ticking clock, and while Piper won't mourn the end of college, she's not looking forward to deciding what comes next.

There's not a blueprint anymore, not after this.  No clear next step, and no grades to prove she's completing it successfully.  

 

 

* * *

 

 

" _Hello_?"

"Whoa, easy soldier."  

"Oh, it's you, thank God.  Sorry.  I thought it was my dad.  He's been calling all week to have the same stupid fight."

"What fight?"

"He doesn't understand why I won't take the LSATs."

"Why won't you take the LSATs?"

"Because I don't want to go to law school.  Or be a lawyer."

"That's  _such_ a good reason.  That may even be the best reason."

"You'd think.  He says it won't hurt to take it... _just in case_."

"In case of what?  A sudden emergency that requires four years of law school?"

"And the most annoying thing is he acts like this was all  _decided_.  I never once said I was going to law school, but listening to him, you'd think it was the entire plan."

"What about an English and Theater double major screamed  _law school_ to him?"

"No idea.  I guess, to be fair, it doesn't really scream anything else."  

"You could be a bard.  A traveling bard, moving around and espousing trivia about misinterpreted Robert Frost poems."

"Technically a bard would have to be _writing_ the - hey, you remembered the Robert Frost thing."

"Of course."

 

* * *

 

She keeps thinking of something Alex said, back when they first broke up, about how their lives didn't fit.

She's supposed to be reshaping her life right now.  

She wants it to fit.

 

* * *

 

 

 

"So.  Have the festivities begun?"  

"Senior bar golf last night.  It was a predictable shit show."  

"I'm sure.  Who won?"

"It's not really a competition.  And if it was, I think everyone lost."

"Ha.  So, what?  A week away?  You getting excited?"

"Not really.  It's easy to dodge my dad on the phone.  Not when he's actually here, taking the whole family to celebratory graduation brunches.  He wants to sit down and figure out a _plan_."  

"A plan for what?"

"The entirety of my future, I guess."

"Fun times.  You aren't going home with them, are you?"

"No.  We've got the apartment through August, so Polly and I are going to keep working at the restaurant, save up all summer.  Then we have to decide if we want to sign on another year."

"Are you thinking about it?"

"I don't know.  Probably not.  Seems kind of pathetic, right?  Hanging around your college town, like that girl who won't leave the party even when the lights are on and the music's off and everyone else is going home."

"Ooh, yeah, don't be that girl."

"At least that girl has a plan." 

...

...

"You okay?"

"Yeah.  I don't know.  I feel just...weirdly panicked.  And stupid.  This is what you always said, right?  That I don't know what I want."

"Hey, no.  You know what you _don't_ want.  That's important, too...I'm really proud of you, Pipes."

"For  _what_?"

"For not going to law school or grad school just to have an answer to give your parents.  Fuck, they should be proud you're graduating.  You'll figure out the rest."  

"I wish you were gonna be there."

"I know.  Me, too.  I'd get an air horn and everything."

 

* * *

 

 

The thing is, Piper knows what she wants.

She wants Alex.

Alex is the maybe only thing she's ever wanted just for herself, not because her parents told her to.  Not because she was _supposed_ to.

Piper at twenty-two is restless.  She is suffocating.  Her world feels small and limited and played out.  She wants to overturn the snow globe and shake the whole thing up.  Or, fuck it, kick out the glass altogether. 

The only thing she wants to take with her is Alex.  She wants to run toward her and not away, for once.  She wants more than the voice on the phone.  She wants to prove Alex wrong about them being doomed from the start.  

She _wants_.

 

* * *

 

It's nearly three a.m, and the bar's lights have been on for thirty minutes, the music off for fifteen, but everyone's refusing to leave.  Graduation is in six hours.  This is their last night as college students.

It will be a very hungover graduation.  

Finally, the bouncers start physically escorting the mass of students out of the bar, and Piper grabs Polly by the elbow, and she grabs Grace, who grabs Haley, who grabs Jenna, and the five of them end up on the street.  They are all drunk and sentimental.  Their parents are in town, packed into local hotels, and they'll be waiting for them on the campus lawn tomorrow, hopefully unable to tell how much they've all had to drink.

Polly looks at her watch and insists they walk back to the apartment instead of trying to find a taxi.  She and the others have their arms around each other, badly singing that stupid Vitamin C song from a few years ago about graduating.  Piper walks a little apart, laughing at them but not out of her head enough to participate.  

She's thinking about high school graduation.  They'd stayed up all night before that, too, sneaking out of Piper's house to jump in the pool at three a.m, then left her room smelling like sex and chlorine.  She remembers kissing Alex that night, the way she tried to make every touch feel like a promise.  She remembers her own certainty that nothing would change.

They've been broken up for over three years.  She hasn't seen Alex for a year and a half, since that Christmas junior year.  And yet.

And yet and yet and _yet_.

There has been her voice.  

 _Always_.

It's on the other side of the phone while Piper sits in her bedroom, eyes closed, lights off, trying to turn off her other senses.  It's on their answering machine, letting Piper know when her plane lands safely.  It's shouting over music or murmuring into silence, practically whispering in Piper's ear.

And it's here, now, floating from the shadows outside their apartment building.  "Hey, Pipes."

"Alex?"

Alex Alex  _Alex_.

Alex is supposed to be in Belgium, she said she couldn't get out of it, couldn't possibly make it, but Alex is  _here_.  Her eyes are tired and her hair's in a messy half ponytail and there are bags at her feet but she's  _here_ , and she's smiling, and it feels like Piper conjured her just by wanting it so much.  

" _Alex_."

She forgets to wonder what she's supposed to do, how they're supposed to act, and she practically knocks Alex over in her hurry to get in her arms.  She feels truly drunk for the first time in hours.  She can't stop saying her name.  

Polly and the others start to walk past them; Polly stops and nods at Alex.  "Good timing."

"Thanks for the help," Alex says, and this is so strange Piper has to pull back and look back and forth between them.

"She called while you were taking your Renaissance Lit final," Polly explains loudly.  "Told me it was supposed to be a surprise but she couldn't get here until almost four am.  I knew we'd be out, so.  No big deal."  She shrugs, then herds the others inside, leaving them alone.

"You're here..."  Piper's holding onto Alex's forearm, pointlessly.  "I can't believe you came."

"It's good to see your face."  Alex gives her this small, soft smile.  Her eyes are tracing Piper's face, taking her in.  "I missed you."

"I missed you, too."   Piper's feeling tearful, all of a sudden.  "God, how did we go this long?"

Alex brushes at an errant strand of Piper's hair, moving it from the corner of her eye.  Piper twists her fingers around the front of Alex's shirt, holding on, and swallows a million needy questions about what this all means.

"Should you be sleeping?"  Alex asks eventually. 

"No," Piper shakes her head hard.  "No, as long as I can respond to my name and walk a straight line tomorrow, I'll be fine.  Don't need to be well rested for that."  

"Good.  Cause if I sleep now I won't wake up in time...my body has no idea where it is."

"I can't believe you came," Piper repeats, smiling like an idiot.  

"Well.  I remember finding you really fucking cute in the whole cap and gown get up."  The teasing light in Alex's eyes dims a little, and she bites her lip. "And I wanted to give you your graduation gift."

Piper flashes suddenly on the expensive necklace Alex tried to give her three years ago, just before they broke up, and she winces a little.  "You didn't have to get me a present."  

Alex smirks slightly, and it feels like something warm spills out in Piper's heart.  "I know I didn't.  Me showing up was pretty damn good on its own.  But still.  I have you something."

Piper grabs one of Alex's bags and they go upstairs to the apartment, through the living room where Grace is sleeping on the couch.  Jenna and Haley seem to have gone back to their own apartment, and Polly's shut up in her room.  Alex follows Piper through to her bedroom, pausing to smile at the wall of postcards, and the plethora of photos of the two of them scattered around the room.

Alex sits on the edge of Piper's bed and starts pawing through her smaller, carry on bag.  Piper reaches out and grabs her arm again, seeing it in light for the first time.  "This is new."  

She glances down at the tattoo like she'd forgotten it was there.  "Oh, yeah.  Well, like a year or so ago."

Piper frowns a little, letting her fingers trace Alex's skin.  It's stupid, but she doesn't like the evidence of how much she's missed.  A  _year_ she's been imagining Alex wrong.  

"So did you talk to your dad?"

Piper shakes off the moment and looks up.  "Yeah.  Told him I'm staying here for the summer, waitressing, and I'll use the time to 'figure out what's next'.  He still says grad school."

Alex is watching her intently.  "What do you say?"

"I say I'm ready to be done with school.  I don't want to be one of those people who stays entrenched in academia for fucking ever because it's the only thing they've ever been good at."

Alex lifts an eyebrow, just enough of a suggestive smirk in her voice as she says, "You're good at a lot of things."

It makes Piper want to kiss her.  

So she does.

"Yeah," Alex murmurs against her mouth.  "You're good at _that_." 

Piper cradles Alex's face in her hands so she can't move away.  They slide back on Piper's mattress, her knees on either side of Alex's lap.  "I want you," she says urgently between kisses.  "I want _you_ , Alex."  She means it in every possible way.  Alex's hands are in her hair, she's kissing her neck, the curve of her jaw.  

Then Alex pulls away, leaning back to look at her, and Piper makes a desperate, gasp of a sound before she can stop herself.  

But then Alex is pushing an envelope into her hands.  "Happy graduation."  Her eyes are dancing, her lips curved into a grin, but there's the slightest tinge of nerves in her voice.

Piper opens the envelope and shakes it.

A plane ticket to Bali falls into her hands, dated a week from today.

Piper's eyes widen and she looks up.

There is Alex's face, lit with hope.  And there is Alex's voice, asking her to come.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't the end of the YB 'verse - I know of at least one lengthier multi chapter I want to do - but it might take me a little longer to get around to writing that one, plus there's a little more of a time jump leading into it. So I wanted to do this epilogue and kind of...wrap up/set up this era of the 'verse.
> 
> People's response to this series continues to overwhelm me. Love to hear what you thought of this piece as a whole, and where we left them. Thanks so much for reading!


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